THE COLLEGE ANSWERS
Just the other day a perfectly fine woman, the mother of one of our students, said to me, "Why are college men and women so different today? What in the world ails them?" It was an interesting question and since the question seems to fairly represent the honest opinion of a great many people, it is a question worth answering.
Strangely enough there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the colleges in general, nor with the young people who attend them. The fault lies deeper than that. It goes back to the homes from which these young people come and to the social conditions surrounding those homes.
After all, the college is just the gathering place of a large number of samples, a cross section, if you like, from the homes of rich men, poor men, social leaders, leaders of liberal thought, "Babbitt" homes and real homes. But since these samples are gathered in one spot, their actions and reactions are more easily seen and misunderstood.
"Home" is rather a strange word to use in connection with the present stopping place of the usual family. There are homes left in America but they are mostly in the socially isolated regions where present day social civilization has not yet penetrated—the civilized outposts, as it were.
There is no sense in being bitter about this nor is there any sense in further temporizing. The average home from which men and women go to college today, is not the home of the parents of former college generations. Canned food, canned music, canned ideas, machine-made clothes and machine-made ideas broadcasted by radio! Movies, more movies and still more movies. The center table lamp no longer lights up the family circle reading, talking and working. Instead, the family has translated itself into the family circle of the newest, most garish movie house, to see the newest, most garish picture. Home life as such is nearly extinct. Home influence has expired from the lack of real homes.
Let us take up our indictments in order: "College men and women drink"; Some of them do. Why shouldn't they? As long as so called decent people think it smart to break the law, as long as our doctors, law makers, judges and first citizens spend their time accumulating hootch, and satisfy their social aspirations by meeting new bootleggers, as long as a "breath" is a badge of distinction and being tight, a matter of grave congratulation and envy, why should the sons and daughters act differently? "Honor thy father and thy mother I"
"They smoke and gamble terribly"; As a matter of fact, they don't! But why shouldn't they ? Can you think of a really smart party today that does not include cigarettes for the ladies? Or a card party playing for fancy pin-cushions or lamp shades? You can not. Father and mother now gamble because it's smart. Table stakes make it more interesting. Only recently one of the boys got in trouble with the administration because he gambled. His father was sent for and the following conversation occurred in the office of the president. Father, "George, how much a point do you play for?" George, "A cent a point, Father!" Father, "Good Lord, Boy, I only play for a half a cent myself!" And then you expect this college administration to police this boy and keep him from gambling! It isn't funny, it's pathetic.
"And those horrid dances"; Quite so. Nothing since the earliest dawn of civilization can approach the sensual sordidness of these dances which are no longer Barbary Coast high spots, but danced right in the country clubs and in the homes from which these young men and women come to college. If things are too quiet around home, it is socially smart for mother and father to go out to some hotel, inn or road house—where father has thoughtfully established his drinking residence—and trot around until morning drives them home or the place closes up. "Well, if Dad does it, why should you kick?"
When 'I was young the men might drink but they never would appear at a party under the influence of liquor, where women were present." They wouldn't now if the women were not under the influence of liquor too! The Crinoline Age was merely a reflection of the existing surrounding social conditions. This generation will continue to think this custom "smart" just as long as their parents think it "smart." Just a year ago I attended one of these smart functions at a great mid-western hotel. It was smart for each debutante to carry a gold flask. It was smart for each boy or man to be similarly equipped. The sounds of revelry could not have been duplicated in the time of Belshazzer! Nice people, too, the nicest and smartest in the city.
And a number of you have the courage to blame this on the colleges. You have had your say; be patient and let us present the rest of the case for the defense. Have you ever stopped to think that because it is easier for you, because of the more complex life you lead, you are sending the youngsters away to summer camps, away to school, away to camp again and thence to college? They often know the janitor as well as they know their own folks. When they do come home for vacations they dash madly from one drunken party to the next, reaching home with the milkman. Oh, yes, it s smart and "well, everybody is doing it, you know, and we can't be oldfashioned." In heaven's name, why can't you? During a recent vacation I heard a girl—not in college—ask her father if he would serve cocktails at her party. He said he wouldn't and made a few remarks about the present generation. She said, "Oh, well, do as you like but they won't stay unless you do." And he, righteous man, shook up a synthetic cocktail for dinner and growled the rest of the evening.
You send us radiator boys and kitchenette girls. You send us your own flesh and blood and say in effect, "For heaven's sake, take care of them; we can't." And then some of you lift your pious faces to Heaven and groan about the present younger generation. Yes, you do. Weve heard you repeatedly. Isn't it about time for you to do your part of the job? You parents seem to have come entirely under the sway of the great American fetish " they." You laugh at the savage and his primitive "taboo," yet you are more under the spell of what "they" say and what "they" do than the poor savage ever was. There are thousands of you—millions I hope—who hate this hootch ridden social system, but too few of you who dare say so, who dare accept the responsibility of bringing up your own children in your own way.
Probably you like this wholesale criticism just as well as the colleges have liked the criticism you have been giving them. Probably too, this criticism is just as true as was your criticism. Both sides have been calling a spade a steam shovel, not to be unfair, but to use sufficient emphasis to start some constructive thought and action. The new generation is worth all the thought and help we can give them. The young men and. young women in college today are clean living, clean thinking youngsters forced into doing things that disgust them because the times decree that these are the things to do. The colleges do not originate these customs; they are the direct product of the home town smart set.
If you wish the present college product changed, change the home conditions first. Have the same courage and decision to avoid hootch and jazz that you expect the college generation to have. Dare to refuse to go to places where such usages and customs are permitted. Take a little real interest in the young men and women—and set the example of your own decent conduct. Make it smart to be decent. Frankly, college men and women are so fed up on the stuff at present that unless you put your own house in order promptly, you will be embarrassed by having your children ask you to do so. Give of yourself. Drop a few clubs; leave out a few parties, and devote half the amount of time to your children that your parents devoted to you. Forget this busy stuff. If you give these youngsters half a chance, you will find a community of interests that will surprise you. Summer camps have probably saved this generation, yet isn't it just a bit unreasonable to plan the time of your children so that the irreducible minimum will be spent at home or in your company ?
There are thousands of homes where hootch and jazz are unknown. Men and women from these homes are the balance wheels of the colleges and nation. Instead of more hopeless criticism, let us try to increase the number of these decent homes. It is the most patriotic duty we have ever faced.
The youngsters of today are wonderful. Their potentialities are the greatest the world has ever seen. Education, travel, culture, are theirs for the asking. Direct them. Help them and in helping them, help yourself to become a working force for decency. Right now the colleges need your help on another phase that has not been mentioned before, rotten literature. For quite a while this yellow peril has been lying low. Now it is beginning to creep back. You can help stop it. Stop your subscription. Don't buy the books, but whatever you do, don't read the stuff secretly and then try to prevent your children from reading it by remarking, "It's not nice for you to read things like that—yet." Use a little sense, can't you ? That is the one remark necessary to make your child beg, borrow or steal a copy.
This is not the time for preachment. It is a time for action. Prudes, blue laws and goody-goodies are not invited to this party. Reasonable people are. It is simply time to get back to decent fundamentals, not to "must nots" and old fashioned prudery. This is a new fashioned world where reason must replace command, where companionship must replace paid supervision and where real direction will come only by force of real example. The colleges are finding a wonderful response from the present generation. The colleges are more fundamentally religious than they have ever been. I have been back in educational work for four years. I have seen men under the influence of liquor; I have seen real he-fighting but I have not yet seen a mean act. The colleges accept their individual jobs. Will you accept yours ?
The new dormitory: Russell Sage Hall
HARRY R. WELLMAN,Professor of Marketing in the Tuck School
