OUR IMMORAL YOUTH

No one who keeps an eye on the doings and sayings of "this giddy globe" as reported in the columns of the daily press can have failed to notice the increasing flutter and agitation caused by the extravagant, immoral ways of the younger generation. Educators, reformers, and social service workers join battle on both sides. One day it is the automobile, the next it is lack of religion, and recently the opinion has been voiced that the girl "vamp" is to blame. While every so often the country is assured that its youth is at heart wholesome, and needs only to be directed gently into the straight and narrow path.

All this discussion is interesting--especially for those being discussed. One has something of the feeling of Mr. Cobb's goldfish when all his moral traits and characteristics are dragged triumphantly to the light. Sometimes, too, there is a temptation to wonder if the critics, in their zeal, are not piling Pelion upon Ossa, and driving their proud victims to further limits in order to uphold the reputation laid at their thresholds. For above all we of the younger generation are anxious to please--and if we are expected to be shocking, shall we not do our best to give satisfaction? But when everyone except the culprits themselves is allowed to make suggestions, this task is becoming increasingly difficult.

Are we really so much worse than our forefathers? Or was that philosopher wrong who said that every generation thinks its children lawless? Not that we object to all this talk, amusing as it is, but we should like to know whether the constant struggles to be horrible examples is unique with our age alone. If we have succeeded in stirring up the wrath of the just for the first time, we should at least get credit for that.

Second thoughts, however, dash, these hopes for fame. One has but to remember the song "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" to see that we do not stand alone in our wickedness. And is there not a moral of some sort attached to the expensive, rakish horses and turnout of Pendennis?