305

appeared from the countries bordering the Mediterranean.The enormous administrative problems of control among300 million people in India are being resolutely faced. InCentral Africa a good start has been made in French andBelgian territories and in Northern Nigeria and Angola;but eradication will be troublesome and expensive becauseof poor communications, administrative difficulties, andspecial problems associated with the high intensity oftransmission.Professor Macdonald issued two salutary warnings. The

first is that the amount of research devoted to the

study of anopheline resistance to insecticides is infinitesi-mal compared with the efforts at eradication, which wereinspired by the fear of it. There is need for a great deal ofapplied research into problems associated with the ex-pansion of public-health programmes, and the world as awhole has not yet learned to provide it. The second warn-ing is that the rapid increase of population in areas freedfrom malaria will raise new and serious problems, whichare already evident in Ceylon and elsewhere. The increaseis mainly to be found in rural populations, and, despite theincreased area of cultivable land resulting from the con-quest of malaria, a search for industrial employment isinevitable. Towns will grow rapidly, and capital invest-ment in industry, land development, and housing will beneeded on an unprecedented scale." The last decade," said Professor Macdonald, " has

seen a greater change in the material state and outlook ofpeople in tropical countries than any in past history. It ismy conviction that this is no mere temporary surge, butthe beginning of a movement which will be progressive,which will affect both tropical and temperate countriesalike in many ways which may be good or bad, and whichwill be looked upon as one of the turning-points in thehistory of the world."

1. Present Needs in our Work Among Youth. By D. H. STOTT, M.A., PH.D.Pp. 14. 9d. Obtainable from the Trustees, Charles Russell MemorialLecture, 17, Bedford Square, London, W.C.1.

A MOULD FOR GOOD CITIZENS

FROM a background of centuries of living in traditionalpatterns, with an unchanging social framework, millionsof people were uprooted during the industrial revolutionand thrown into new cities. The new urban masses losttheir cultural and social framework, and were left withonly " their primitive obedience to unthinking instinct andtheir lack of any social obligation outside their narrowhuman circle." Making this point in his Charles Russelllecturer Dr. D. H. Stott said that Russell with his clubs,and his contemporaries with their schools, began to createa framework of civilisation for the youth of these urbanmillions. Their achievement was great (today no vastareas of our cities are unsafe for strangers), but the presentresurgence of hooliganism is evidence that much must stillbe done. Unhappily, the youth-club movement, which isso important in this work, tends to be taken for grantedand neglected by public and Government alike.The continuation of the industrial revolution in our

time is leading to increasing use of machines and auto-matic control, and there is less and less place for the casuallabourer or the worker who prefers an occasional unpaidday at home when he feels like it. Some will deplore thistendency because it seems to subjugate the individual tothe impersonal interests of social organisation; but, as

Dr. Stott observes, the tendency exists, and it is becomingharder for young men of low educational standard to find

job. This is one reason for the surprising thirst among

youths for the education which clubs provide; another is: that " young people just tire of mere recreation ". One

young man came to reading-classes after his girl-friendhad jilted him because of his illiteracy; another broughthis girl to the club to teach her to read. In less extremecases the clubs are often more satisfactory than the countycolleges as a means of continuing education after boys andgirls have left school, because the club-worker has moreopportunity than the college teacher of getting to know hispupils. School-teachers have made successful club

workers, and Dr. Stott urges integration of the youthservice into the wider educational system. The inspira-tion needed for club-work does not always burn for alifetime; it should be easy for workers to enter and leaveclub service, and integration would help this.

Besides their stalwart work for normal, if "

partiallycivilised ", boys and girls, the clubs have$done much tohelp delinquents. Dr. Stott considered the reasons whyjuvenile crime persists despite better social conditions.One is that today’s " rebels without a cause " stand abetter chance than those of fifty years ago of surviving torebel another day. He does not agree that their outburstsstem from social frustration when they find they cannotget on in a world where " getting on" is thoughtimportant, or indeed that they think in such generalterms at all; rather they are preoccupied with the amuse-ment of the moment and their immediate personal attach-ments. Their ties to their family and intimates are strong;but they do not conceive that those (outside this smallcircle) whom they injure may have feelings. Serious

delinquency appears when some powerful disturbance of aboy’s feelings towards his family has made him ignore eventhe harm his misdeeds will bring on them. Delinquentsare not " sociological

" or

" psychological " but both.

Can a youth club help such boys (or girls) ? By givingthem occupation and recreation it removes the urge forantisocial forms of self-expression; by education andinstruction it gives promise of a fuller life (and perhaps abetter job), and helps remove that pattern of living byday-to-day whim which is one of the roots of delinquency.A club may well thus lead boys away from crime; but canit do anything for boys who are already hooligans ? Thefirst difficulty is to get them into the clubs; and someworkers have managed this by associating with andbefriending the leaders of gangs. Such leaders are rarelywell-adjusted, but are usually unhappy youths needingemotional support, which a devoted, unromantic, andskilful worker can provide. Dr. Stott thinks that each suchworker might rescue one or two boys a year from a lifeof crime. A special type of club is needed for these boys;it may serve as a stepping-stone to a club of more generaltype. The teacher and school welfare-officer can help byspotting potential gang-leaders and criminals at an agewhen they are still malleable. It is extremely importantthat no child, however ill-behaved, should be spurned ortreated as a nuisance; if he learns to regard some adult(who has made him a special responsibility) as one of hisintimate circle, he is unlikely to grow up without a senseof personal obligation. If that adult is a teacher connectedwith a club, the association may continue fruitfully foryears, even till the boy marries-yet another argument forintegration of school and club.

MR. GwYNNE WILLIAMS, consulting surgeon to UniversityCollege Hospital, London, died on Feb. 3.