UNIVERSITIES AND UNEMPLOYMENT
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—During the holidays I have read with much interest the correspondence about Unemployment amongst University graduates, as well as letters to The Times on the subject of the Christian Front. At the same time I had the melancholy experience of receiving sixty applications for a temporary post on the staff of a Public School. A large number of the appli- cants were obviously good men with excellent qualifications. - What are the thoughts of these able and well-educated men
who cannot find work at the end of an expensive education ? The organised bodies of Christian thought have certainly to face a serious situation in the existence of a body of unemployed but highly educated men and women. I have never known such keen interest in political and social matters as is shown by the present generation of schoolboys. They see a world in chaos and are about to be plunged into it. Everywhere there is disharmony and disunity. The contrast between Christian teaching and the economic, social and political conditions at home and abroad shocks many of the more thoughtful.
The impatience with which many of the s:t young men regard long established institutions, such as the Church or Parlia- mentary Government, is surely understandable. Many are much more interested in politics than in their own future career. Conscious of their powers, thoughtful, educated, adventurous, and in the full vigour of young manhood, they feel that they are held up and cramped. Can we wonder at the publication of such a magazine as Out of Bounds? This schoolboys' magazine appeared for some months a few years ago, and its defiant and cynical spirit was simply the outcome of a sense of frustration and impatience. In like manner some turn to Fascism or Communism.
I find myself turning wistfully to two great Victorians- Mazzini and the earlier Carlyle of Past and Present and Sartor Resartus. The basis of all life is Spiritual. We must turn again to the teaching of the Master and humbly acknowledge our failure to follow Him. But that is not enough. There must be born within us the will to reshape our lives. Mazzini said : "Man is Thought and Action."—Yours sincerely,
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