United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
I am interested in it for various reasons. First of all, because it is
an association of young men. I have had a good deal to do with young men
in my time, and I have formed an impression of them which I believe to
be contrary to the general impression. They are generally thought to be
arch radicals. As a matter of fact, they are the most conservative
people I have ever dealt with. Go to a college community and try to
change the least custom of that little world and find how the
conservatives will rush at you. Moreover, young men are embarrassed by
having inherited their fathers' opinions. I have often said that the use
of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as
possible. I do not say that with the least disrespect for the fathers;
but every man who is old enough to have a son in college is old enough
to have become very seriously immersed in some particular business and
is almost certain to have caught the point of view of that particular
business. And it is very useful to his son to be taken out of that
narrow circle, conducted to some high place where he may see the general
map of the world and of the interests of mankind, and there shown how
big the world is and how much of it his father may happen to have
forgotten. It would be worth while for men, middle-aged and old, to
detach themselves more frequently from the things that command their
daily attention and to think of the sweeping tides of humanity.
Therefore I am interested in this association, because it is intended to
bring young men together before any crust has formed over them, before
they have been hardened to any particular occupation, before they have
caught an inveterate point of view; while they still have a searchlight
that they can swing and see what it reveals of all the circumstances of
the hidden world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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