I: HANDLING YOUNG PEOPLE

1. If it be your painful experience that the teaching Sister and the modern girl no longer understand each other well, this is not a thing peculiar to you. Other teachers, often parents themselves, are not in a very much better position. It is not using empty words to say that young people have changed, have become quite different perhaps. The chief reason for this difference in the young people of today may be that which forms the subject of the frequent lament: young people are irreverent toward many things that formerly from childhood were naturally regarded with the greatest respect. But young people of today are not solely to be blamed for their present attitude. In childhood, they have lived through horrible things and they have seen many ideals formerly held in high esteem break down miserably before their eyes. In this way they have become distrustful and aloof.

5. It must be remembered also that this complaint about lack of understanding is not something new. It is one made in every generation and it is mutual between maturity and youth, parents and children, teachers and pupils. Half a century ago and even a little before that, there was a good deal of sentimentality. People were fond of believing that they were "misunderstood" and said so. Today, the complaint, not devoid of a certain amount of pride, is more concerned with the intellect. The result of this misunderstanding is, on the one hand, a reaction which may sometimes exceed the limit of justice, a tendency to repudiate anything that is, or appears to be, new, an exaggerated suspicion of rebellion against any tradition. On the other hand, it is a lack of faith that shrinks from all authority and, spurning every competent judgment, seeks solutions and counsels with a sort of infatuation more ingenuous than reasoned.

Strive for Understanding

6. To try to reform young people and convince them by making them submit, to persuade them by force, would be useless and not always right. You will induce them very much better to give you their confidence if you, on your side, strive to understand them and to make them understand themselves -- save always in the case of those immutable truths and values which admit of no change in the heart and mind of man.

7. Understanding young people certainly does not mean approving and admitting everything they maintain in their ideas, their tastes, their whims, their false enthusiasm. It consists fundamentally in finding out what is solid in them and accepting this trustfully without remorse or anger; in discovering the origin of their deviations and errors which are often nothing but the unhappy attempt to solve real and difficult problems; and, finally, in following closely the vicissitudes and conditions of the present time.

8. Making yourself understood does not mean employing words that are not sanctioned by good usage and constructions that are ungrammatical leading, as they do, to inaccuracy and vagueness of thought. It rather means expressing clearly one's own thoughts in different yet always correct ways, striving to fathom the thoughts of others, always keeping in mind their difficulties, their ignorance, and their inexperience.

Young People Capable of Appreciation

9. On the other hand, it is also true that young people of today are fully capable of appreciating true and genuine values. And it is precisely at this point that you must assume your responsibility. You must treat young people with the same simplicity and naturalness you show among yourselves: you must treat them according to their character. At the same time, you must all show that spiritual seriousness and reserve which even the world today expects from you, that spiritual seriousness and reserve through which it must sense your union with God. When you are with young people, it is not necessary to speak continually of God. But when you do so, you must speak in a way to command their attention: with genuine feeling arising from profound conviction. In this way, you will win the confidence of your pupils who will then allow themselves to be persuaded and guided by you.