COMFORT

At a time when the various colleges are sending more men and women into the waste lands of modern existence one is tempted to remember those lines in a passage of Stark Young's criticism where he suggests that certain modern actresses would be much greater actresses had they at some time in their lives really suffered. For few of these young graduates who are now leaving their feathered nests of American higher education have really suffered. At best some of them have worked--but work after all is not suffering.

Great and lasting achievements are not built on Persian rugs, nor do dreams completely crystalize into accomplishment in well furnished apartments. The average citizen is much too possessed of comfort. Nor is it difficult to gain. One has but to stay long enough with a large corporation or get high enough in a small one; one has but to write down to the public--and success drops comfortable laurels on brows never wet with anything but delightfully refreshing showers.

To preach a doctrine of struggle toward the unattainable, to suggest a departure from the paths of indolence and case--that is to play the hypocrite. For in this case as in many others the precise caption is--"Aren't we all?" But one can regret that in this great number of graduates from these many American universities and colleges there will be so few who will strive, not as a moth for a star, because the moth never does see the star, but as vigorous, vital human beings toward the high hills of existence which neither a contented faculty or a contented public will ever dream of. In such struggle there is little comfort and little pay--but in June when the future is all before one there should be no valid reason for failing at least to dream of the mountains and plan to visit them in the gray days of tomorrow.