Via Manly P. Hall/ FB: Just as true today as it were in the 1930's.
"The
energy, courage and vision of youth can support the progress of the
world, yet it is denied a place in the sun. No provision has been made
to insure a square deal to the young people of America, no hero has come
forth to champion their cause before a self-centered generation. The
miseries, uncertainties and disillusionments of past decades are
overshadowing and oppressing the new generation. Must unborn tomorrow
always suffer for the sins of dead yesterday?
In a few years the older generation, with its plots and spoils, must pass away. Instead of battling the feudal lords of industry and finance, secure in their high places, leave them to the inevitable ravages of time. If these hard-set men who think only in terms of success, and whose only emotion is love of power, cannot be reformed, we need not despair. What men cannot change, nature will remove in due time.
Vesalius at 26 rescued the scientific mind from two millenniums of error. Pitt was prime minister at 24. Jeanne d’Arc freed her country, crowned her king, and died at 19. Alexander Hamilton was on Washington’s staff at 20. Mendelssohn at 17 composed a great overture. John Ericsson, who built the Monitor, was a draftsman at 12 and a full-fledged engineer at 18. Great things have been done in the world by the young, and it would be easy to stimulate the contributions of youth in this country. But now, as in the dark ages, youth must bow to the superstitions and mistakes of age, its vision and hope wasted, and its courage allowed to fail for lack of opportunity.
Let us then educate the younger generation to a different standard of life and action. Let us invest every resource of the nation, if necessary, in equipping youth to rule the world of tomorrow more wisely than age is ruling it today."
Excerpted from a 1939 Lecture "A PLAN FOR THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF AMERICA" Copyright © 1994 by the Philosophical Research Society
In a few years the older generation, with its plots and spoils, must pass away. Instead of battling the feudal lords of industry and finance, secure in their high places, leave them to the inevitable ravages of time. If these hard-set men who think only in terms of success, and whose only emotion is love of power, cannot be reformed, we need not despair. What men cannot change, nature will remove in due time.
Vesalius at 26 rescued the scientific mind from two millenniums of error. Pitt was prime minister at 24. Jeanne d’Arc freed her country, crowned her king, and died at 19. Alexander Hamilton was on Washington’s staff at 20. Mendelssohn at 17 composed a great overture. John Ericsson, who built the Monitor, was a draftsman at 12 and a full-fledged engineer at 18. Great things have been done in the world by the young, and it would be easy to stimulate the contributions of youth in this country. But now, as in the dark ages, youth must bow to the superstitions and mistakes of age, its vision and hope wasted, and its courage allowed to fail for lack of opportunity.
Let us then educate the younger generation to a different standard of life and action. Let us invest every resource of the nation, if necessary, in equipping youth to rule the world of tomorrow more wisely than age is ruling it today."
Excerpted from a 1939 Lecture "A PLAN FOR THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF AMERICA" Copyright © 1994 by the Philosophical Research Society
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