FLICKERING YOURTH

Youth is again under indictment, and must this time bow its head to the charges of no less an authority than Amos Alonzo Stagg, director of athletics at the University of Chicago. There is little doubt, in the opinion of Mr. Stagg, that modern youth has been allowed to grow up softer than a punctured balloon tire. He would put the blame on such Innocent appearing things as late hours, rich foods, and indulgence in other luxuries of life which he believes have combined to enervate the present generation.

Mr. Stagg has apparently overlooked the fact that it takes a fairly sound constitution to stand the "fast life" that he deplores. His statement to the effect that "our fathers" were of a more virile stamp is one which modern insurance statistics can easily disprove. And in view of the remarkable extension of intra and extra-mural college athletics one may read his statement with a shade of skepticism. The youth of today does indeed lead a "faster" life than did the older generation: but constant participation in healthful exercises has made this physically possible.

No doubt fewer of those mammoth physical specimens from prairie farms report to Mr. Stagg as raw football candidates than in the days of Dink Stover, but the caustic critic points out that most of these demi-gods were muscle-bound, and that they dissipated in saloons and buggies, whereas the modern youth has only the ice cream parlor and the harmless Ford. Moreover, these huge giants are far too large to fit into the modern scheme of things, subway turnstiles, for example.