AN UNDER THIRTY PAGE
By THE EDITOR
THE series of articles published in these columns in the last three months of 1937 aroused a surprising amount of interest. The articles themselves, no doubt, were open to various criticisms. They were not repre- sentative either of social classes or of attitudes towards life ; they were unduly pessimistic ; few of them manifested that spirit of adventure and enterprise which characterises a large part of the generation of today, as it did a large part of the generations preceding. All that may be true. The writers themselves, I think, would not deny it. With one exception I know personally everyone who contributed to the series, and they are all of them, I am quite satisfied, conscious not only of one another's shortcomings but of their own. What they were asked was to say honestly what they felt about certain aspects of the life they had to live and I see no reason for disappointment at the articles that resulted, the more so since some of their authors had never written anything for publication before.
Whether the generation under thirty does hold distinctive views, or maintain a distinctive attitude, of its own is an open question. Personally I think it does. Between twenty and thirty the outlook on life is almost wholly forward. Life's distances, its possibilities and its opportunities, lie ahead. After thirty the glance is backward as well as forward. There is more of the trodden and less of the untrodden road. There may be the satisfaction that comes of ideals realised, or on the way to realisation ; there may be the stab of frustration and disillusion. Of course, Under Thirty is discussing the same difficulties and hammering at the same problems as Over Thirty, or for that matter Over Eighty. But they mean something different to it. It wants to talk them out with people who see them in the same light, and on the basis of the same experience, people of its own generation, not with more mature guides, philo- sophers and friends—nor with more mature cynics or poseurs or patronisers. Not exclusively, at any rate. My own conviction is not only that youth has something to teach youth, but that it has something to teach every decade of advancing age.
That conviction may be mistaken, but it is worth putting to the proof. The Under Thirty articles lately published* appealed, as the extensive correspondence they evoked has shown, quite as much to readers over the rather arbitrarily chosen limit as to those still under it, and the interest evinced by both classes seems to warrant the institution of a regular Under Thirty page in The Spectator, at any rate for an experimental period. What form it will assume, what value it will have, I am not going to predict. That will depend largely on the contributors to it. Some articles will be commissioned ; others—and these are apt very often to turn out best—chosen from those sent in spontaneously by writers who think they have something to say worth saying. Content in such cases matters more than form. I hope young writers may find this page a stepping-stone- but they will not if they concern themselves more about words to clothe their thoughts in than about the thoughts themselves.
But what precisely, it may reasonably be asked, is the function of an Under Thirty page to be ? The best answer perhaps is solvetur amindando. The thing is experimental, and it must shape its future as it goes. The intention, at first at any rate, is that discussion should not range at large, as it did in the Voice of Under Thirty articles, but fasten on some particular subject for some five or six weeks and then pass on to some other, whether arising indirectly from the first or unconnected with it. There will be no lack of themes. Several have been suggested already by Under Now obtainable in pamphlet form. Spectator Office. is. Thirty readers, and more suggestions would be welcomed. Those received so far include The Use of Leisure ; Why I am Not a Christian ; Patriotism and Internationalism (or, more succinctly, For King and Country ?) ; How I Would Have Planned My Education ; Opportunities for Adventure.
The last of these would make a good beginning. The articles in the Under Thirty series were criticised as lacking in the note of resolution and self-discipline and adventure, and with some reason. There was manifest a tendency rather to submit to life than to grapple with it, to accept things as they are rather than to make them different. It is what may be termed as the Safety First way of life, and perhaps the right title for the series I have in mind is not " Opportunities for Adventure," but " Safety First ? "- with full emphasis on the question-mark. Adventure would have to be given a wide interpretation to cover the field intended. The chance of physical adventure is not for everyone. We cannot all go climbing in the Alps or even in Lakeland or Glencoe—or turn steeplejacks. We cannot all satisfy a zest for travel, though what is possible in school holidays or university vacations at no great expense deserves attention. But every man or woman who at financial risk cuts loose from some dull or soul-destroying employment in the determination to find a vocation that will give his personality scope (or hers) is displaying the true spirit of adventure.
In a speech he made in the League of Nations Assembly at Geneva less than a month before his death, Dr. Stresemann, then German Foreign Minister, joined issue with those who declare that war is necessary to develop a nation's moral fibre. " I must remind those," he said, " who live on the memories of youthful heroism throughout past centuries and past ages that apart from any other considerations the mechanised wars of the future will give little scope for personal heroism.
But I foresee that the wide field of conquest over Nature will give sufficient outlet for heroism, and even furnish men with opportunities of laying down their lives for great ideals." That text needs expanding, and translating into terms of the average man's—and woman's—everyday life. It is not only a question of heroism, or of sacrificing life for great ideals, but more often of simply fulfilling life, of developing personality to its full capacity. That always calls for effort, if not for risk. It can never be consistent of the pursuit of safety first. But what forms is it to take today for people born since 1910 or thereabouts ? How is the spirit of Tennyson's " Ulysses," or Kipling's " The Explorer," to be interpreted in the fourth decade of the twentieth century in the most civilised country in the world ?
That is a subject worth discussing, and I hope it may be discussed here in the next few weeks in such a way as to dispel all doubts about the utility of an Under Thirty page. That rests with the potential writers. Any articles that may be submitted will be carefully considered, and if printed paid for at the usual rates. The length should be about 1,250 words. They may be signed or not as the writer chooses. And it is well to bear in mind that the world does not consist exclusively of university graduates; thi,, page will considerably disappoint my own hopes at any rate if it does not provide a platform for Under Thirty writers from all walks of life, and, needless to say, of both sexes. Normally only articles by writers under that age will be used, but occasionally someone over thirty with a recognised title to speak on a given subject may be invited to contribute. The first article in the " Safety First ? " series will be by Edward Shackleton, a son of the Antarctic explorer. who has himself been on expeditions to Borneo and Green- land, and will, I hope, appear next week. H. W. H.
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