BETTER THEN?

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 7, 9 January 1932, Page 15

BETTER THEN?

I 'am often asked by my friends of both sexes of the younger generation whether I really think I had a'better time in my youth than they have now, writes "An Edwardian" in the "Daily Telegraph."

The first time ."the .question, was put to me I answered, perhaps without proper; deliberation, that I believed I,and my contemporaries certainly "did;; life may not have been so free and easy, but the" reflected worries •' of one's parents'seeihed 'fewer, and wHenhplidays did come we were able .tp do more and get more out of a small expenditure than is now the case.

However, my questioner, who happened, to be a young woman, refused to .accept my opinion. -As. she ■was; an intelligent girl, I pondered a good deal over our conversation, and have come to the conclusion .that, so far as girls are concerned, she was right. They do have a far better .time than they used to have, but young men' certainly do not.

!- Girls nowadays are free and untrammelled by restrictions. No longer is it necessary for a young lady: to be accompanied by her maid if she wants ;to go shopping, in Bond street, no longer is the suburban mother uneasy at the thought of her pretty daughter going to her work in towa alone. All mothers have come to realise that girls !can be trusted to look after themselves. Where before it; wag the aacepted idea that they should live in enffiire' ignorance of all lifo's pitfalls and temptations, now the.reverse is the case. The war altered all that; For the irsi time in history girls. en masse went into the vortex unprotected, and knowledge resulted; and knowledge nowadays is a girl's surest armour. /:, -

Young men and girls, now. meet on terms of equality! If they like each other they will probably call each other by their Christian names in the space .of a fewv^ys, .perhaps hours.. There ;is no harm, in it, and it isthis Mhail-fellow-weltiiißt*';.',-' sort .of/ intimacy which, even if-it floes curtail sentiment.

OURSELVES WHEN YOUNG

allows young people the more readily to appreciate each other's mental qualities at the-Bame time.as their physical attractions. It is because girls and boys are allowed complete freedom of speech and-thought, without the- constant {intervention of their elders, that matters of sex .have become a secondary consideration. •'

I am not attempting to minimise the importance of • this consideration, but a young man and woman who fall in love and who have opportunities—riiever given in my day-rof, being, alone together and getting ■ to-know each, other's character, have far more chance of being happily married than was the case five-and-twenty years ago, when, unless it were stolen fruit, meetings alone wsre almost impossible'-until the engagement was ■ announcedjr: and -if illusions were then shattered' a sense of '""doing the right''thing" made jit too late to preventa' miserable..union. '. Young men certainly, dq, not have .as good a time. In most clasaea.and professions they have to start work earlier and; stick; to' it far harder in order, .to succeed—not: a .bad thing either;" tut their recreationsvcost them more;.- :A young, man in the Army. in? my 3ay, with £400 a.year besides his pay, could, easily afford;to hunt. Now he.ean'not; neither' can : he shoot,, as nine- shoots Out of-every; ten are .turned into syndicates, ,and he can. afford .neither the time nor the' money .to join one. ]-'.■> '. I like the youths of to-day immensely. They have excellent mannets'; and are; ho longer afraid to voice their 'opinion,' but they 'do •so quietly and deferentially. ■ Many have-- the sense now to -ehoo%e their,- own ~ profession, instead of having' one—probably unsuitable—chosen for - them.- If they commit indiscretions and get found out they accept tes^nj^ifiiy.V'-^jntbqiit demurj; they do : curse ; fheir bad luck or attempt to shovel tie blamq on to someone else.'.■■>ln "fact, boys: and girls of .to-day are just as- nice -as they were impossible immediately after the.