Then came the assault upon civilisation, to which all these sacrifices of liberty had been the preface. The children of Germany were still further despoiled. Their formative years were embittered in an atmosphere of harrowing uncertainties. Every day was irritable with dreads and gray with unrelieved privations. There was never an hour from which the knowledge of horror was absent. The Armistice for a moment seemed to promise freedom, but the peace terms sentenced them to a life-time of servitude. Can you wonder that they refuse to be associated with the unwisdom of their elders? They have seized on the dream of a new generosity. They believe that in the eyes of all youth there are visions. They will appeal over the heads of adults to the youth of the nations for friendship. “We children were never enemies,” they say. “We did not make the war. We were the victims of it. We were not consulted.” They insist, with impotent passion, that the fathers' sins shall not be visited upon their generation. “We want to be young,” they plead. “We have never been young. We have only been little.” “Poor kiddies!” is one's first comment. But their demands are not to be dismissed so cavalierly. The Free Youth have already commenced a revolution—it is a revolution of ideas—ideas in the main which have not become articulate. But these child enthusiasts will be men and women soon. They will have to be heard. No one can foresee to what lengths their yearning for freedom may carry them. It should be the business of the Allies to show them sympathy and give them direction. There are three points in their movement which deserve to be made emphatic. The first is that they are absolutely correct in their assertion that the children of the Allies were never at war with the children of Germany. The second is that the Free Youth of Germany are fighting for precisely the same ideals for which the Allies fought, and are doing their fighting on German soil where it will be most effective. The third is that they are showing a spirit of regeneration which, if it is encouraged, will become the national spirit of tomorrow. For the safety of the world, if for no less selfish reason, their movement deserves the Allies' consideration. A part of their ideal has already found expression in the new German Constitution, which was passed two months after the signing of the Peace Treaty. The clause is number 148 and reads, “Our schools must educate our children not only in a spirit of patriotism, but also in a spirit of international reconciliation.” As Dr. Simon, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, said when he pointed it out to me, “That wasn't so bad as a beginning when only two months had elapsed since our humiliation at Versailles.”