This Generation of Ours

"The world laughs at us, why not occasionally laugh at ourselves?"

"We are the froth of the post-war wave. Restraint cast aside, our generation rides the crest of freedom. But propriety and necessity is about to break the wave. The fringe of our generation will feel the downward sweep into the trough, where youth best listens.

"This generation of ours has been painted a gin-drinking, thrill seeking group. As a matter of fact, the penny wise novelists have not produced accurate pictures. They have portrayed the minority who seek extremes. They have painted us as carousing with Bacchus and toying with Venus. But we do none of these as a generation. The weak among us have thus fallen victims to the freedom brought by the war. But our generation has not taken liberty for license as unit.

"This generation of ours, instead, has taken freedom to mean freedom from the duty of application. We have abused freedom until we are victims of laziness. We talk and dance and cultivate languor, but we do not work.

Uilivauv- iCHIg, - —w "This generation of ours has perverted free- freedom as a means of escaping obligation. We ignore our duties and cast adrift our loyalties.

"This generation of ours has lost appreciation. We have denied ourselves the sweet of gratitude. We have dulled the polish of sentiment, by not acknowledging our debt to the home.

"This generation of ours has lost respect. Bound up in ourselves, we respect nothing that transcends us.

"This generation of ours has lost humility. We do not recognize our own insignificance. We take the present as ours, instead of preparing for our heritage of the future. We assume the superman demeanor, to veil callow minds beneath.

"This generation of ours is intolerant. Pretending a benign tolerance, we shame the tolerant spirit by our pettiness.

"This generation of ours has lost reverence. We are blind to the beauties of simplicity and faith. We scorn the virtues exalted by our elders. We bitterly arraign, our elders for their sincerity. We profane beauty; because it cannot always stand the cold test of reason.

"This generation of ours is stereotyped. We have confused individualism with eccentricity. In trying to be different, we have wandered from the worthy individualism which is based on valid conclusions concerning life.

"This generation of ours is complacently smug. We have lost ambition and energy. We are fish outside the water of life.

"This generation of ours is cowardly. We do not face life with courage, but try to escape. We flutter under the illusion of forgetting. We dodge the questions of life. We do not play square, because we are afraid to stake ourselves against life.

"This generation of ours is ignorant. We expect the world to acclaim us. We do not dare to study reality, lest it show us our true unimportance. We relinquish the joy of hoping for the vanity of expectation. We are going to be surprised."

Then The Dartmouth led up gradually to the general summary of the whole attitude, which follows: