The Wilmington morning star., 1940-05-04
Editorial Comments
From Other Angles
MOLDS FOR MINDS
Raleigh News and Observer

A good many Americans, who wish to create
ardent faith in the young in democracy, some
times contemplate with something approach
ing a wish for emulation the propaganda in
education methods by which the totaltarian
states are supposed to be absolutely fixing
the minds of their children in faith in fascism.
Undoubtedly American children should grow
up in understanding of the great virtues they
possess in democracy and freedom. But no
fascist-patterned program of propaganda in
the schools will assure faith in democracy.
Even the fascist p~ropagandists may be less
successful in fixing the minds of the young
than they and the outside world also appear
to think.
In an article in The Yale Review, Albert P.
Martin, who has had unusual opportunity to
see below the surface of events in
during the two and half years he recently
spent there in humanitarian work, has this to
say:
SIT is true that the children and young peo-
pie whose memories do not antedate the ma
tional socialist regime are especially suseep-
tible to propaganda. But it is easy for our era
to overestimate the effects of propaganda. l
should say, from what I saw and heard, that
German children, like children in any other
country, until the beginning of the adolescent
years, are prone to be hero-worshippers and
to believe whatever their teachers and leaders
tell them. But there comes a period In the
middle teens when the critical powers and the
desire for personal independence pegln 10 oe-
velop, and in this period the tendency to doubt
is strong. Although some of the propaganda IS
extremely clever in its exploitation OF the ma
tional psychology and especially OF its bllnd
spots and foibles, some of it is extremely stu
pid in its arrogance and brazen disregard for
the simple truth. One obstacle to the success
of propaganda is its monotony. When the truth
is presented with equal vigor, it has charms OF
freshness and freedom with which propaganda
cannot compete. And when once the young
person begins to doubt, everything is possible.
This process of establishment, of course, can
be observed only in the individual; but over
a period of months one may observe it taking
place in many individuals. 1t is a painful proc
ess, and scarcely less painful to watch"
Though they may do it on a larger scale,
with greater unity and directed determination,
the totalitarian states are certainly not the
only places, nor is this the only time, in which
the elders have sought to impose their views
upon the young. Indeed, there is probably no
older activity of mankind. Yet the whole his
tory of the world and Of successive human
| generations in its history has been the story
Of the young rejecting the ideas of their elders
| and of the elders complaining about If II
might be as excellent a thing in democracy
as we think it is a dangerous thing IN the
totalitarian states, if the minds of the vo,,no
could be fixed in the terms which those in
charge of their teaching insist are best. It is
basis for either courage or despair that that
has never been so in any absolute deore,
] Perhaps it never will be