Kankakee Valley Post, Volume 2, Number 25, DeMotte, Jasper County, 12 January 1933 — Simulating Youth [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Simulating Youth

By THOMAS ARKLE CLARK

Late Dean of Men, University of Illinois.

I believe in one’s feeling and looking young as long as possible. It Is

foolish to admit old age until it Is upon us; but there is a certain imbecility in simulating youth when youth is far gone. It shows a lack of dignity, a latk of experience, a lack of a proper appreciation of the relati v e value of things. The story of the friendship between David and Jona-

than is one of the most appealing in the Bible. David is an impulsive boy, full of play, fearless, ready to take chances. Jonathan is a warrior, serious, slow of action, steady, middleaged if not beyond it. He had experience, he had judgment, he had dignity. He didn’t pretend to be a boy, nor did he have boyish ways, but ne could sympathize with a boy. Gifford says that he and his, boy are just pals, which, if properly understood, is as it should be. What Gifford really does, however, is to act the part of a child when he is with his son. I am not at jjll sure that it pleases son, for he really is just a little disappointed that when in company with him his father does not act like a grown man rather than a School boy. Deal is a successful business man who has been *out of college [twenty years or so. At home he is quiet, steady, and dignified. He is held up to the young men of his community as a model of exemplary conduct. He is a trustee of one of the churches and a member of the board of directors of the First National bank of his town. When he goes back to visit his frajternity at homecoming time, he wants to be one of the boys. Now a man who has been graduated twenty years or so, is forty-live or thereabouts, and there is no difference between forty-five and eighty to a college boy. The forty-fiver is an old man and they, expect him to alcft like one and are’disappointed if lie doesn’t. The tendency to simulate youth is not confined to men. Middle-aged women and old women often try to be girlish, and too often the attempt is pathetic. To youth it seems quite silly and ineffective. ©. 1932, Western Newspaper Unlbn.