New Lost Generation?

"In spite of optimism, philanthropy, and youth conferences, this is one hell of a world for kids to be trying to grow up in."

So said Columbia's famed Sociologist Robert S. Lynd (Middletown, Middletown in Transition), at a youth conference in New York's City Hall. The trend which alarmed this veteran tracker of U.S. trends was the prospect that the nation's early-teenagers are growing up to be a new "lost" generation like that in Germany and Austria after World War I. "Too young for the glory of having been in war," said he, they will be "passed over when jobs are given returning veterans."

Mayor LaGuardia, echoing this gloomy prediction, wondered why youths should now be learning such trades as plumbing, drafting, electricity, and sheet-metal work in the city's Building Trades High School when "tens of thousands" of servicemen are being trained in them. "Why train more people for the next five years," he asked, " . . . if they can't find employment?"

In Washington next day, Dr. Winfred Overholser, head of St. Elizabeth's federal mental hospital, predicted an era of loose living beyond anything seen in the "Jazz Age" of Postwar I. He declared: "The loosening of morals started after the last war has continued ever since, and is reaching a new high, as evidenced by the soaring tide in illegitimacy."

For the World

Whether or not the whole world has been badly brought up, most citizens of the United Nations agree that there is something wrong with education in the Axis countries. One man who wants to correct that miseducation is Grayson N. Kefauver, dean (on leave) of Stanford's School of Education and State Department consultant on cultural cooperation. This week, after six months' study and consultation with fellow experts in London, Kefauver made an interim report. Its basic recommendation: set up a United Nations educational and cultural agency. Among other things this agency, by action or advice, would help to:

P: Reorganize and control education in Axis nations.

P: Give emergency and continuing aid toward restoring the buildings and equipment of schools and colleges in ravaged United Nations.

P: Replace valuable books looted from occupied countries with similar books from Axis libraries, and set up a globe-circulating library of rare and valuable books.

New Books for Old

Said the New York City Board of Education: "Many of us feel that the methods of the past have not engendered the love for books that children should have. Many of the textbooks . . . are worn, dog-eared, and filthy . . . hardly an inspiration to future book lovers."

Trying something new, the Board last week placed an initial order for 600,000 new books for public-school children (sample authors: Mark Twain, Stevenson, Dickens, O. Henry) with eye-catching illustrations drawn mostly by the children themselves. These will be distributed free to 7th, 8th, and 9th grade pupils, to keep for their very own.

"The Record Stinks"

The managing editor of Stars & Stripes' Paris edition, Major Arthur Goodfriend, is no armchair journalist. A tireless legman, he often strips himself of his insignia of rank, goes out to live and fight with G.I.s to find out what they feel, think, want, need. Last fortnight he launched an editorial offensive which he promised to continue. Opening barrage:

"The Army Office of Education reports that 23.0% of the troops in today's Army finished four years of high school. Another 3% had four or more years of college. If we read that right, it means about 70% of American men of fighting age have had less than a high school education. And if that's the case, we think the record of education in the good old U.S.A. stinks. . . .

"Tomorrow's educators will inherit the world's biggest job. The world will be their classroom. The kids of a hundred countries their scholars. Today's tragedy their text. The little red schoolhouse must change its tune. Yesterday's tripe won't do. . . ,"

Editor Goodfriend got prompt corroboration from several sources:

P: In Attlebridge, England, testifying at the court-martial of a U.S. Army private with a mental age of "about nine years" who had confessed to the murder of Sir Eric Teichman, Major Leo Alexander, an Army psychiatrist, announced that the average mental age of U.S. Army enlisted men is between 13 and 14 years, only slightly higher than it was found to be in World War I.*

P: In Tampa, 22-year-old Arlie Morgan, a World War II veteran entitled to $50 a month while schooling under the G. I. Bill of Rights, enrolled in the sixth grade. Said the principal: "There's nothing we can do but accept. But it's not such a good idea to have grownups in classes with children."

P: Dr. Howard Dawson, director of the National Education Association's Rural Service, estimated that 500,000 veterans with less than fourth-grade and 4,400,000 with less than eighth-grade schooling will be eligible for education at public expense. His proposal: special schools, to be financed by the Veterans' Administration.

* Actually the term "mental age" is misleading when applied to adults, and its importance is often exaggerated. Army intelligence tests during the last war indicated that the average U.S. mental age was that of a 13-year-old child. But Americans are not such imbeciles as this would imply. Tests to determine mental age are designed solely for children, since most psychologists agree that it is impossible to cover every adult's special skills or field of information.

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