26 MARCH 1927, Page 17

THE BOY OF TO-MORROW [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

Sin,—Sr., Hind-Smith's admirable letter about the Girl of To-morrow prompts me to beg the use of your columns to say a few words about the Boy of To-morrow. This is a brief expression of the ideals of the younger and coming generations.

In the first place, they have two courses open to them : they may either, as exhorted by Toc H., C.O.P.E.C., and other similar institutions, endeavour to. inaugurate a new era of production and construction, both socially and industrially ; or they may follow in the footsteps of their elders and betters (?), They would like to adopt the former course, and assuredly will do so, provided they are not hampered and scoffed at by cynical older generations, which, haVing made a mess of life themselves, arc inclined to imagine that no one can make a success of it.

When the younger and coming generations think—and they do so occasionally, despite Dean Inge—they realize how great has been the folly of the three generations prior to the Great War. They do not blame them for their previous folly, but they do lose patience with the survivors of those three genera- tions when they condemn, after a most cursory glance, so many of the movements which tend to reconstruct the fabric of society on a saner and more humane basis. Surely, no catastrophes could be worse than those for which the older generations are responsible, for are they not responsible for the present social and industrial chaos Surely, then, they cannot justly turn down schemes which, although they admittedly present some possibility of failure, do at least offer a greater chance of success than those of the older generations.