Evening star., 1936-07-16

little beyond Its spiritual and intellec-
tual means, straining always to goal
so high that the man himself must ex-
pand and grow to attain it.
On the contrary the creative life
is pictured to youth as something to
be handed out as right" along with
relief jobs and free motion pictures.
Ones very sympathy for youth en-
genders indignation against such mis-
leading Of it, and the issuance Of
false hopes and false promises. Youth
is being told today that this Is a
land of plenty; that only the criminal
greed of the rich prevents everyone
from having all that he needs or de-
sires, with q minimum of effort. It
is not true. We are a country which
has squandered its resources by an
irresponsible and speculative spirit
shared by rich and poor, middle-aged
and young alike. We are Nation
which has lived on futures and
charged today's luxuries up to to-
morrow. At present we are doing this
on a scale hitherto unknown in the
world
Not Enough Production.
And never, at any time, have we
begun to produce enough, nor have
we at present the equipment to pro-
duce enough, even if it were uni
versally and equitably distributed, to
assure every one even a halfway de-
cent living. If youth wants more than
we have ever had, then youth has grave
responsibilities. Under whatever po-
litical or economic system might be
devised, the coming generation will
have to work harder and more skill
fully, think more clearly, live more
austerely, accept more diciplines and
make far greater demands upon itself
than the generation just past has
done, il We are not to 60 from bad
to worse. Whoever tells youth differ
emily tells lie
There are curious anomalies, too,
about youth and unemployment At
the same time that the young cannot
find jobs, industry is crying aloud for
highly skilled young artisans and
cannot find them. In our metal indus
at this moment. If we approach
again the production level of 1929 there
will be $4,000 new jobs in the metal
industries alone-and it will be hard
to fill them. In June, 1885, the Ma
tional Industrial Conference Board
published survey showing that in
dustries were competing with each
other for thousand skilled young
men who could not be found. The
country needs all-around machinists
with trained hands and trained minds,
young men who can read blueprints,
order materials. understand and oper-
ate various kinds of machines and
who are competent mathematicians.
Apprenticeship Necessary.
While we have stopped immigration
from Europe, which used to furnish
us with our best artisans, We have
been training up generation i'm
patient of the long apprenticeship
which all high degrees Of skill require,
who do not want to use their hands
and who think that it is more noble
to file papers in an Office than to
know how to use and control a COM
plcated machine, or properly till
field, or handle delicate woods lovingly
and eXpertly. Hundreds of second
and third rate colleges turn out
youths supposedly trained in the lib
eral arts and professions, who are
next TO illiterate And the trades
unions frown upon apprenticeship,
while industry itself has been crimi-
nally lax in opening up opportunities
for learners. We have been educating
a Nation of clerks whose idea Of the
creative life is to. spend money plenti-
fully for tawdry limitations. This is
not youths fault. 1t is youths mis-
fortune.
There IS nothing in any social sys-
TEN which will enable it automatically
to rise above the level of the ca
pacities of its citizens. And the best
civilizations have never been those
which handed out the greatest amount
of comfort for the least amount of
effort. Great civilizations are those
which make the most prodigious de-
mands upon men, setting the loftiest
standards.
(Copyright, 1880