ABSTRACT
The cult of youth means misery for most of life. By the time a youth group has succeeded in winning something from the middle-aged, its members are likely to be middle-aged themselves and suffering from their own earlier success. By taking children off their parents’ hands and by moving young people off the streets and into high schools and colleges, the schools perform a public service somewhat akin to the garbage collector. The willingness of people to raise their school taxes is remarkably enhanced by a school system shutting down for a few weeks and delivering the children to the tender mercies of their parents. The obvious life strategy for youth is a long-range project to increase respect for the aged. Death is the specter at every human feast, the fly in every human ointment.
