THE COLLEGE MEN OF TODAY
Possibly one of the reasons why President Ernest M. Hopkins of Dartmouth is such a successful leader is because he is not at all disturbed by the so-called deviltries of the younger generation. He is young enough himself to have faith in the young men of today, and he is old enough to know that the older generation was not exactly perfect. Just to show you what is in his mind, let me share with you a couple of paragraphs from a personal letter which I received from him a short time ago:
"I presume it is a very old story, but my father, who was a minister, and whose stories were minister's stories, used to tell me a story of Spurgeon and a young minister who was to hold forth in Spurgeon's pulpit. The young clergyman was very self-confident and very cocky and rather obviously heedless of some of the suggestions which Mr. Spurgeon made to him before the service, and he began his presiding over the congregation in this spirit and with this attitude.
"Gradually, however, the size of the auditorium and the responsibility of his functions came to him and finally he almost completely collapsed and ended the whole thing in a funk.
"In great humiliation of spirit he later apologized to Mr. Spurgeon for his previous attitude, whereupon the great preacher replied to him:
"'If you had gone up into the pulpit the way you came down out of it, you would have come down out of it the way you went up!'
"In justice, however, to the college men of the present generation, I am bound to say that, as I see them at Dartmouth, they are less bumptious and more modest than they were in my day twenty-five years ago. Likewise, they drink less hard liquor, swear less hard cuss words, live cleaner lives and forego chewing tobacco, all of which things are details, but nevertheless manifest a general tendency which is desirable.
"One sure thing I hold to, and that is that this generation of youth, as I see them in the undergraduate body, is sufficient justification for optimism, even when one becomes impatient with many of his elders and distrustful of many of his own generation. 'Billy' Phelps of Yale says that middle age and old age are always critical of youth because they are jealous of it, and I am inclined to think that this is a true diagnosis. There is a certain cockiness. and self-assuredness that goes with youth that is probably a rather essential detail of self-confidence, but I do not object nearly as much to these qualities in youth, who after all feel a certain responsibility to justify these attitudes, as I do to the bigoted and intolerant group of elders who mistake their achievements in single spheres for certificates of omniscience in all that has to do with the world's affairs. When all is done and said, any youth may go through to accomplishment which shall be of the supremest importance in its service to mankind, whereas very few of us who are their elders have shown ability to do so."
(From The Treasure Chest) Edited by THOMAS DREIR
