FRANK DAVIDSON '39, founder of the Guardian, who edited "Foresight in Foreign Affairs" two years ago, has taken time off from his work with the C.C.C. educational program to engineer a new book. This time he has teamed up with Thacher Winslow '29 administrative assistant in the N.Y.A., and collected thirteen essays dealing with what Mrs. Roosevelt calls in her foreword "one of the most vital problems of our society"--the problem of meeting the threat to democracy growing out of a jobless, drifting, and disillusioned generation of young Americans.
The lines along which the contributors to "American Youth" believe this problem must be attacked are suggested by George S. Pettee in his penetrating chapter on "The Appeal of Totalitarianism," where he says, "There is one critical point in the field of this battle (against social disintegration and revolution) and one only: if American youth can continue to feel that the American order is adequate in opportunity and hope, that it is worth working in and for, that its purposes are stimulating and rewarding, we are in no danger from any side." He goes on to make two suggestions: "First we must never stop teaching the possibilities of modern human life. Second, we must find ways to give every young American the sense of pride in fruitful work."
The nature of the educational problem which Mr. Pettee hints at is enlarged on by Harvard's Professor Robert Ulich in a chapter on "Constructive Education" in which he calls for a school system which will "develop in its pupils initiative and ethical character." Dartmouth's Professor Rosenstock-Huessy vaguely believes that "we must provide for the future adult an education that makes him experience 'emerging inspiration,' emerging authority." The more prosaic task of increasing the facilities for vocational guidance and training is treated by Aubrey Williams in his chapter on "The Role of the Schools."
But character building and job training will not provide for America's four million unemployed young people "the sense of pride in fruitful work." Consequently the majority of the contributors to "American Youth" see the necessity for some form of voluntary work camp programe--possibly an enlarged C.C.C. with "a reputation as a man factory, not as a mere warden of sub marginal youth."
Such a proposal may seem irrelevant today when America is beginning to find a place for its jobless--in the army and in defense industries. But this currently popular remedy is at best a palliative, and in the long run aggravates the disease. For as William James pointed out in 1910 in his brilliant essay on "The Moral Equivalent of War" which is reprinted in this volume, there is a direct and fundamental connection between a frustrated generation with no stake in society, and the devastation of recurring warfare.
