10
T n e S p h i n x , Apr.l,
1926
sumed responsibility for ten thousand marks ($2,500) of the budget of the E. S. R. This is the same fund which is known in this country as the Student Friendship Fund, to which contributions have been made through the National Student Council of the Y. M. C A. and to which the Negro students have made appreciable contributions. IV.
The Youth Movements
The determination and the aggressiveness of the students characterize the spirit of the Youth movements. As with the nations, so with their youth. Their bitterest sufferings are in the region of the spirit, not the body or even the mind. Burning with a sense of wrong, brooding over each national or racial slight and injustice, seeing no hope in the present social order, thinking the church ineffective, believing the only hope to be in another war—such are even now many of the future leaders of the nations. Others are less bitter, but more despairing. These see no hope in w a r ; at the same time no sign in the nations of the good will that alone can avert it. And still others, largely students, who feci that the responsibility of citizenship makes a demand upon the student. These have rid themselves of the academic mind and turned from books to life itself. These have divested themselves of the pedantry of mere tearing. These have developed an imitative and alertness of intelligence whose moral fiber strengthens in adversity, true to its ideals. These are they who constitute the Y/outh movements of Europe which are powerful factors in the nations abroad, and like unto which we have nothing m America. Students of the history of education should recognize a condition now comparable with that of Europe in the eighteenth century. It was then that the people smarted under the belief that the power of the King had been bought with the slavery of his people; his success in war with the impoverishment of the country ; the extravagance of aristocratic society with the sordid lives of the common people. In its origin, the Enlightenment was a reaction against the hierarchy in church, state and society. The Enlightenment asserted a supreme faith in the reason of the individual, in justice to the state, in tolerance in religious belief, in liberty in political action, and in the rights of man. Freedom of thought, liberty of conscience, sufficiency of reason for the conduct of life were thus the watchwords and the keys of the interpretation of this eighteenth century movement. These same keys admit to the philosophy of the present youth movements. The outstanding youth movement in England is the Youth section of the No-More-War Movement; in Holland, Jongeren Vreden Actie; in Germany, .the Weltjugendliga, which is the more definite organization expressive of the idea of the Wandervogel Bencgug. These groups find themselves in sharp opposition to the whole life of society, with its often outworn traditions and double standards of morals. The name of Wandervogel is a battle-cry of a mental revolution. Its members would achieve a life of real inner honesty and self-dependence. Belief in the right of the individual, freedom of thought, liberty of conscience require that the individual must respect the sight and personality of another. This group then is contending for international justice and good will. Respect for another often comes as a result of knowledge of that one. So these groups meet in Conference with the youth of other nations; they go camping together; they exchange letters. Any rebellion against formalism makes for naturalism, so that just as the Enlightenment was attended In a naturalistic movement headed by Rousseau, so is this attended by a naturalistic movement These youth believe that an individual's highest development is grounded in the actual life of their own country, its landscape, its people, its old folk songs, the simplicity
and wisdom of which they discovered anew and learned to know during many evenings of singing and dancing in the meadows and woods. Among other forms of expression which this new realization of life and freedom put on, was care and respect for the body, in the matter of habits, food and clothing. Many are vegetarians. At Swanick and at Thorp Bay, England, it was noticeable that the young men and young women were often barefooted. Frequently the young women wore one-piece sleeveless dresses, and the young men had nothing on except short trousers which remind one of running trunks. As may be expected, there are ex'remes which call themselves youth movements, as "The Association for Simple Life," "The Vegetarians," "The Naked Association," and so on. But these exaggerations have not been able to harm the real movement. In a sentence, the final and essential aim of the movement is the achievement of a harmonious and sincere personality, expressing itself in respect for personality and free expression of opinion, and in a c Ttam contempt for all overdone forms of organizat .HI.
The striking thing is that France has no strong youth movement. 'I here is a new organization called the Jeune Rcpublique, but we made no contacts with it. France is handicapped by the absence of young men who would be leaders. Mr. Chaffee, the National ( ouncil Secretary of the Y. M. C. A.'s in France, told us that France lost two million men whose ages at present would be between twenty-five and thirty-years. Just the group to furnish the major leadership for youth I There are no organisations in America corresponding to these in Em-ope. Our history, our mode of living, our problems have not been of a nature to fo.xe such. Three organizations definitely for the youth of this country are the Federation of American Students. the r-ellowship of Youth for Peace and the Council oi Christian Associations. The Federation of American Students grew out of the World Court Conference which I attended at Princeton University last December. The Fellowship of Youth for Peace is the organization which directed our travel abroad. It is^ associated with the Fellowship of Rsconcilis ian vhich h a : Icen active in stimulating the students of the American colleges to think on international and interracial problems. The Council of Christian Associations consists of the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W . C. A. These, through their student departments, have aggressive and broadening programs. Yet many of otir students remain uninformed on these matters. They do not know of the opportunities offered by I '-'• icipation in the Student Friendship Fund, They do not know that the support of Max Yergan is intimately connected with proper racial representation in the Wo-ld's Christian Student Movement. The Challenge to Negro Students I am firmly of the opinion that the Negro student is thinking too narrowly. We absorb ourselves in our own problems as a race with a sense of acceptance of the inevitable. Preoccupied with ourselves, our eyes never turn to the conditions of students elsewhere. The Negro must be of international significance. The majority of the Europeans have no more vivid idea of the American Negro than we have of the difference between the Baltics and the Balkans, a kind of geogra1 h - not always learned in school. Now many of US can even pronounce and spell with assurance, Czechoslovakia and Juco-Slavia, countries which offer excellent studies in racial hatreds ! Frontier questions and individual psychology of various countries mean speedy addition to the student's knowledge of modern history. Mastering the difference between a low-valuta and a high-valuta country and the problems of living in each give a rich training in economics. The student of chemistry or physics who has no time for the study of foreign affairs and