Of primary importance is what I would term the "youth conscious ness" existing abroad. Its importance cannot be too greatly stressed, for it is at the heart of most of the vital and determinative movements and groups. It takes many forms and finds diverse outlets, but it grows out of one almost universally accepted insight. That insight is of the inability of the older generation, the war generation, to maintain or to create an order of life that shall be secure and stable, let alone just and righteous altogether. It comes from a realization that the old standards and methods and faiths are bankrupt and that to put further trust in them will prove suicidal for the world.

Out of that insight and that realization grow the more positive feeling that youth must consciously as youth take upon itself much of the task and shoulder a large part of the responsibility of creating a new world; that youth cannot allow the heavy burden of maintaining civilization to devolve upon it so gradually that ultimately it will go on in the old ineffective bungling way, but that now, while it is still hopeful and young and strong, it must consciously prepare to meet the dark and dangerfraught years ahead.

This consciousness is not always articulate, nor is it well ordered, nor of a piece. There is no apparent unity to give it force, nor clear direction to point its purpose. Yet it is in some ways the most important outcome of the war, a new and vital factor in the socio-political complex of European life.

2

In common, I believe, with most Americans, I had known that youth

movements existed in Europe. From time to time I had read reports of the youth conferences held in various lands, and of the more exotic youth groups which attracted the passing notice of a newspaper paragraph. But beyond this I knew little, if anything, of the inner life of youth abroad. One advantage my ignorance may have afforded. I went upon my quest without preconceptions and I believe, without prejudice. I was not even sure that the inquiry would be worth the trouble or that I would be able to find anything tangible and worth while.

These doubts, at least, were dispelled almost immediately. Even before I left America I met and talked with young foreigners living here, and from them I received the first strong impression of the reality and importance of that which I had set out to seek. And by them I was determined on the plan and method of my inquiry. "Do not trust statistics nor books nor theories nor explanations," they told me. "Find out for yourself; not from reports on youth, but from youth itself." The advice was sound. Before I had been in Europe a fortnight, I realized that, confused as the problem was and difficult of understanding, the thousands of books and pamphlets and articles of all sorts, written about, and in part by youth, could but increase the confusion. If I was to learn anything of youth it must be at first hand, by personal contacts, through informal channels.

Increasingly I learned to avoid the larger societies and recognized organizations. In France and Germany, in England and Italy and Austria, I went directly to the source of things,

to youth itself. I took few, and presented fewer, letters of introduction; but where I saw young people I turned to them, explaining frankly that I was a stranger anxious to learn what I could of their land and life. Sometimes I tramped with groups of them for days at a time, went with them on holiday rambles and excursions, loafed with them, joined in their sports, and, above all, talked, talked, talked with themeverywhere and anywhere. And And always, I was met with warm and eager good-will. European youth is used to the informal ambassadorship of itinerant students.

It would be unfair, however, to the report of what I learned and saw to give the impression that I wandered without plan or design, simply meeting by accident those young people on whom I chanced. To a certain extent that tells the story, but there was another side to my journey-a far more regulated side. In almost all the lands I visited there were outstanding youth movements and parties. And these movements and groups were often bitterly hostile to one another. Everywhere, then, I made it my business to learn first of the more important tendencies, whether political or religious, social or esthetic, and then to come into contact with adherents of all the opposing groups; not in order to judge which was right and wise and best, but simply to comprehend as far as possible all the forces at work in the social compound of each land. In this way I met with members of all sorts of groups, with advocates of widely varying ideas. I talked with young Communists in Italy, and Fascists in England; with young

clericals and atheists and Quakers, with pacifist and militarist youth groups. And out of the very diversity of the types and points of view represented, often out of the very conflict among them, there came slowly some perception of the totality of the situation, of the strength and weakness of the various conflicting forces and tendencies at work.

22

It will be difficult to present in an ordered way the impressions made and the conclusions reached after four months of almost continuous journeying. At times these may seem confused and contradictory. It does not really matter. Life rarely arranges itself in alphabetical order or in balances that check. And youth never does. Its essence is of outer contradictions and inner turmoil. And where these appear I shall not try to reconcile them. They are their own excuse. There are, on the other hand, some syntheses that have been made without doing violence, I believe, either to the facts or the spirit which underlies them, syntheses which are necessary if a real understanding of all the factors in certain situations is to be achieved. Some of the problems touched on will be handled nationally, others internationally, and yet others according to racial or religious divisions.

As for the completeness of the material which I have gathered it must already be clear that there are numerous omissions. My survey, if it may be so called, has been selective rather than exhaustive. Yet I do not believe that I have overlooked any fundamental manifestations of the spirit of youth abroad: with one important exception-Russia and

Russian youth are not touched upon. The reason for this is twofold. First, because of the great difficulty of arriving at anything like the truth in regard to Russian youth without a knowledge of the language and without a far greater period of time than I could have devoted to it. Second, because while the youth of the other countries of Europe is watching Russia with eager interest and following minutely every development of the Soviet state and of Soviet civilization, Russia exerts no primary influence on the development of youth in other lands. Contacts are strictly limited, while in all those joint activities of youth, which are its outstanding characteristics abroad, Russian youth plays no part. For both reasons it seemed advisable to leave the problem of Russian youth in other hands.

29

Speaking before the Students International Union in Geneva, Viscount Cecil said, "What the world needs is an international mind, capable of seeing and appreciating the other nations' point of view. Cultivate this mind in the youth of the world and the future will be free from wars." Viscount Cecil was not speaking on this occasion to youth's elders when he demanded the creation of an international mind in youth. He was speaking to youth itself. He was asking of it a self-discipline which had never before been seriously required of any generation of young people.

Yet what Viscount Cecil so eloquently urged is no new concept to the post-war generation of youth that I met. It is the most carefully pondered and fully discussed prob

lem of their intellectual life, a problem which has aroused greater interest and stimulated keener discussion than any other in our time. More than that, it is the basis of the most important and wide-spread movement among European youth to-day. The new internationalism of the younger generation stands out perhaps as the surest sign of the consciousness of youth of its own power and responsibility, and of the ability to organize and develop that power.

There had been organizations before the war, I was told, of young people anxious to promote peace and interested in international friendship. But their efforts had been spasmodic and their activities limited in scope. The internationalism of Europe's youth to-day, however, is of a different sort. It is no longer a charming fad. It has become a powerful force. It is so extensive in its organization and so intense in its earnestness that it must be reckoned with as a serious factor in international relationship. Another great war will find bitter and powerful opponents in great numbers of young people in all lands. And statesmen and governments are beginning to take note of the fact.

The genesis of this strong internationalism is not hard to discover. The youth of Europe awoke from the nightmare of the World War to the realization that the old order of embattled nationalism could be expected to produce but one resultmore war! It also saw clearly that any possibilities of enduring peace could grow only out of a complete reorientation in all lands to the difficult problems of international relations. Rivalries, spontaneous and

stimulated, hatreds, inborn and inbred, had brought Europe to the brink of disaster. A new attitude leading to new relationships must take their place. What these relationships were to be, how they could be evolved and secured, was not at all clear. But the necessity for them was clear. And with energy redoubled by the sense of the critical importance of the task, youth began to work these relations out.

One element of the problem youth recognized from the very outset, an element often minimized or completely overlooked by the seekers after world peace. That element is the inevitable importance of nationalism to the international mind. With a keen sense of reality, it was understood that nothing was to be gained either by ignoring or denouncing nationalism, in the intelligent effort to introduce an international spirit; that nationalism was not only a powerful and indestructible force, but that it might also be turned to positive and active use. Internationalism youth saw need not, indeed, could not be based on the denial of those loyalties which land and nation would inevitably evoke. It must rather find in them the bases on which the international superstructure could be reared.

nition of some greater loyalty, of some tie which binds men together instead of separating them. Internationalism must be on a positive not a negative basis. It must not be antinational, but supernational." On this basis youth began to prepare for those readjustments in outlook and attitude which it felt essential to the creation of an enduring world order.

21

The effort by youth to create within itself an international mind has not always been scientifically made. Often it has been haphazard, unconsidered, at times even irresponsible. But as the years have passed since the war there has come to be more and more of plan and purpose, of foresight and organization in the attempt to cope with the problem. In all lands of Europe I was surprised by the vast network of organizations which youth groups of all sorts had woven, and the many arrangements which had been carefully made to facilitate and foster international relationship between young people.

Perhaps most highly organized of all are the many youth conferences of an international character. These have grown both in number and in importance since 1919, when the first of them was held; and now provide a constant medium for the annual interchange of opinion between thousands of young Europeans. The conferences are of many sorts. They vary in type from such meetings as that held this year in Freusberg, Germany, which laid the plans for a great world youth peace congress to be held next year, to the rather differently orientated conferences of

International Socialist Youth, and the annual meetings of the constituent national bodies of the Confédération Internationale des Étudiants. There are international conferences of religious fellowship among young people, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish; and there are international gatherings of young workers, of young dramatists, of young artists. A word must be said in explanation of these conferences. In America we are prone nowadays to doubt the value of all conferences, to question the good which they accomplish. For the most part conferences, as they have been overdone on our side of the Atlantic, connote little more than formal committee reports, uninspired addresses and verbose resolutions. Europe's youth does not meet this way. Its conferences are anything but formal. A program is considered a point of departure, not an objective. The mechanics of organization are reduced to a minimum. Often the sessions are held in the open around a camp-fire, where no minutes are recorded nor resolutions passed; where instead of seeking superficial solutions to problems, the end is simply clear thinking and fearless discussion discussion on vital themes.

Such conferences prove highly stimulating. For they do not consist merely of polite and pompous platitudes of international friendship. Sharp criticisms of other nations are made in the presence of representatives of those nations. Utterly frank discussions is the rule, and a valuable outlet is given for much of the misunderstanding and ill-feeling which always arise between neighboring and sometimes even distant lands.

The English or French or German youth who returns home from such a conference has not a little honest and openly-delivered criticism of his own country to ponder and digest.

23

Another force operative among youth for international good-will is the great increase in travel on the part of young people to-day. Tours, week-ends, vacations, which take members of one country to another, have become so common that youth organizations now charter hotels and trains and boats to accommodate their numbers. Nor is the quantity only of such travel increased. Travel, especially by young people, is changing its character. It no longer consists of mere sight-seeing or excursioning, but it is purposive to a remarkable degree, and the purpose is the strengthening of the bonds of friendship between the various lands. Tours are arranged by the national youth groups of one country for that of another. Instead of living in hotels and visiting museums when abroad, young people now live in the homes of their hosts, join in their activities, are introduced to the customs of their land.

Especially when they are students, and the number of foreign students in all European lands is remarkably large, they have the opportunity of forgetting the barriers of race and traditions which separate them from their fellows in other lands, of learning to appreciate another culture, another people; they speak a new language, play new games, eat new foods, make friends whose outlook on life differs from their own, whose strong and weak points are other than theirs. The world opens out