It is eager to explore the tempting little brooks and inlets, even if they do lead over the rocks of false doctrines and down the waterfalls of strange philosophies. And so youth travels on always yearning f o r the new and untried. Besides his natural daring, changed social conditions have also affected the modern youth. New forms of indulgence and so-called pleasure-seeking lure him. T h e younger generation has not learned to recognize the newly invented tools and poisonous gases of modern life. Motors, movies, jazz music, freedom of action, liberty of thought, and the rights of individuals^ all threaten, excite, tempt them. J. D. Rockefeller, Jr., says that "Civilization, the accumulation of mind and matter, has temporarily outstripped religion." Too much emphasis has been placed upon physical discoveries, materialistic philosophy, and the invention of new machines. W e have lacked the appreciation of human values and the spiritual development of the individual. Such problems youth must confront. Then, too, when we look f o r the mote in the eye of youth, we must also consider the beam in the eye of the parent. In a questionnaire sent recently to practically all the protestant clergymen in the United States, asking who is to blame f o r the conditions of the youth, seventy-eight per cent of all the writers mentioned as the cause, the bad examples and lax discipline of the parents. One of the great football players of a leading University in discussing the social conditions upon his campus, told how immediately following the Washington Student Conference on law enforcement, his college made a right-about face and student drinking became negligible. Any fellow who encouraged it was quickly ostracized. But when the alumni came back f o r commencement and for the social functions preceding the commencement, the campus went drunk again. Is youth always to blame? W e hear the accusation that the rising generation is seriously lacking in proper appreciation of spiritual values. But all too many modern parents have not done their part toward instilling into the minds and hearts of their growing children the foundation for a strong religious life. Many of the young people who are called wild have received nothing more stable upon which to build their morals than their own wills. In the fast and dizzy pace which the world is setting f o r us now, a young lad needs more to keep him straight than a strong will. H e needs the trust and confidence of Christian parents, the association with Christian organizations, and any other ties which will bind him to the truth. A good home, with wise and consecrated parents, means more in a young person's life than everything else combined. W h a t then shall be the remedy f o r our problem? T h e burden of responsibility must be shared by all. There are various ways in which parents can help their children and there are obligations which youth must assume. A parent should be, above all, a comrade of youth, a sympathetic and understanding companion whom youth can take into his confidence, and who can help him solve the perplexing problems of life. Such comradeship requires a parent's time. Parents plead business causes and social duties; but a successful social achievement or a thriving business is of no value if it is bought at the expense of a child's welfare. Do you remember t h e frantic father in the play, "The Fool", the father who had never known his little girl, and who awoke one morning to find that he never would know her—because she was dead? For that father there was some excuse. W o r k in the mines, f o r fourteen hours each day, and seven days a week, make fathers strangers to their children. But there are parents whose social and business pursuits cause them to neglect their children. They rob the cradle of the hand that moves the world. Moreover, a comradeship between parents and children demands not only that parents should get a knowledge of conditions as they really are, but also that parents should look at these problems f r o m a youth's viewpoint. Many parents resemble the spectators who sit along the sidelines of a football game, criticizing the players without knowing the rules of the game or the psychology of the players. Their attitude is hostile, not sympathetic. They are censors, not friends. And so, parents, we would ask you not to criticize youth, but to listen to youth. Listen not with a sneer as to some freakish novelty, not with scorn as to an enemy. Listen not as to a new and better authority. Look upon us children rather as fellow travelers and explorers who may possibly point out along the road of life what you have not yet seen; who may possibly remind you of something in the path already traversed that you have been ignoring; who may possibly realize the difficulties ahead and strengthen your courage to meet them.
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