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Sunday 11 September 2011

Bennett on youth


Sometimes I wonder about progress. This was written over 80 years ago...

Today youth is discontented. So it ought to be. The business and privilege of youth is to be discontented. If youth were not discontented, today or any other day, the outlook for Britain would be worse than it in fact is. Only the old have a certain limited right to be content. Content means going back, for nobody can stand still; whereas discontent is the mother of progress. Therefore, let youth be discontented. But it is said that today youth has special reasons for discontent. It has. And the first and chief of them is that to some extent it is compelled to be idle.


There are many young people today who, from no fault of theirs, have never worked and who have been trained to no trade or vocation.


Arnold Bennett - The Savour of Life - published in 1928

1 comment:

James Higham said...

History, if we're still around as a species, is going to crucify the left and feminists for what they've done to education.