Youth Revolt Research Articles

Almost Revolutionaries: The London Apprentices during the Civil Wars

PARTICULARLY SINCE THE turbulent decade of the nineteen-sixties, historians have given a good deal of attention to the revolt of youth and generational conflict in the modern world. Early modern English society was quite different from the modern world, but there are some parallels between recent revolts of youth and the activities of the young men of London during the civil war era. In the turbulent forties of the seventeenth century, young men became actively involved in politics on several occasions. This paper will briefly describe some of those occasions and then will analyze this political activism. The several thousands of apprentices in London made up a youthful subculture which displayed many of the psychological characteristics ascribed to modern adolescents. Their ages ranged from the midteens to the early twenties, and their social composition was almost as broad as that of the entire kingdom, for apprenticeship was required of all those who wished to enter any of the crafts and trades. Though a disproportionate number came from London and the surrounding counties, they were drawn from the entire country. I Thus, except for their age and their semi-dependent status, the apprentices were a microcosm of England, showing the same political divisions and uncertainties as the rest of the population. Historians have long recognized the important role that London played in the Puritan Revolution, though they have found it difficult to supply the details of how the crowds were organized and led. While much of the political activism of the City of London and its suburbs was not confined to young people, it is possible to describe some of the riots, demonstrations, and petitions of the apprentices, who had a long tradition of rioting in London. Their opposition to the political and religious policies of the government had become evident even before the meeting of the Short Parliament in 1640. In June of 1639, they responded to a plea for support from John Lilburne, who had been imprisoned.2 This clash between apprentices and the authorities put the young men on record as opponents of Archbishop William Laud, who was blamed for Lilburne's arrest, and was a preview for the more serious anti-Laud riot which occurred less than a year later.

The Changing Social Base of the American Student Movement

A major finding of the pioneering empirical research on the American student movement of the 1960's was that students who engaged in campus protest were pri marily raised in "humanistic," liberal, middle-class families. Based upon these data, the development of student activism was seen as growing from the almost unique aspirations and values of a small proportion of college and university youth who were particularly sensitive to and unable to accept authoritarian institutional structures and social injustice be cause of their family backgrounds. More recently, with the enormous growth of campus unrest, this theory of student activism has been challenged. A study conducted at the University of Wisconsin in 1968 by one of the authors indi cates that there has been a significant change in the social base of the student movement since the early and mid-sixties. This evidence, together with other research findings which are consistent with the thesis of a changing social base of activism, suggest that the "family socialization" theory is becoming less adequate as an explanation of what has become a mass student movement. The extension of student protest to larger sectors of the student population is indicative of a growing "class" consciousness among students which has its basis in a general cultural and political crisis combined with the growing segre gation, "proletarianization," and repression of youth. The implications of these emerging social sources of the student movement for the radicalization of a "new" working class and the "territorialization" of youth revolt are considered.

Revolt of youth and intelligentsia

Revolt of youth and intelligentsia

December 9, 1935: Student Nationalism and the China Christian Colleges

In China, as among many of the African and Asian peoples, early nationalism was almost the monopoly of the urban, educated elite. It was nurtured on anti-imperialist sentiment and was brought to maturity by a knowledge of Western civilization rather than a mastery of Chinese tradition. It was often closely associated with the revolt of youth against their fathers, with the younger generation seeking a more rapid modernization than the older generation. Little wonder, then, that student movements punctuate the definition of nationalism and provide exclamation points in its expression.

Hitlerism and the German Universities

Last year's revolution in Germany has a special significance from the standpoint of education, and deserves the close attention of American educators. Acclaimed by its exponents as the spiritual rebirth of the nation, this amazing social eruption was largely the work of the young generation of Germany. Youths between the ages of eighteen and thirty constitute the backbone of the National Socialist party. The victims of an almost religious fanaticism, they won the victory for the movement against great odds; they are, in a large measure, to blame for the deplorable acts which have aroused the indignation of foreign critics. Thus the upheaval presents itself as another phase of the worldwide revolt of youth, and takes its place beside Italy's fascism (whose war song is characteristically entitled Giovinezza, youth) and the godless movement of the young communists in Russia. Many of these German revolutionists are still in the process of being educated at some institution of higher learning. Three-fourths of the student bodies of the universities are estimated to have National Socialist leanings, and a large portion are filling the ranks of the Brown Army as storm troopers and shock troopers. The students are making history, while their professors have to take the back seats in the political arena. Many of the latter are perhaps in sympathy with the new leadership; if they are not and were foolish enough to say so, they have probably lost their jobs. For the Nazi students owe implicit obedience to their party leaders, most of whom are outside the universities, and their revered commander-in-chief is Adolf Hitler, who finished his schooling with the eighth grade of an Austrian elementary school. At the University of Berlin, world renowned for its brilliant faculty and at one time the mecca of American scholars, the student body is overzealous; it marches in the forefront of the movement, setting its pace. On the campus of this university there was conceived the grand idea of burning books with inimical contents in a public bonfire. There the students compelled the rector of the university, a man of international reputation, to resign because he refused to accede to their demands. Gone is the time-cherished tradition, equally respected by the republican and monarchial rulers of Germany for decades, which vested the university with absolute freedom of teaching and research, thus making it a state within the state. The ruling party has already announced that it will not tolerate any expression of opinion which is at variance with its own proclaimed philosophy of life. At some future time the government may make some profound changes in the organization and educational routine of the higher institutions of learning. If so, the views of the faculties will be ignored; the reform will be imposed, as it were, at a top-sergeant's command; for the doctrines of the National Socialist party are the supreme law of the land to which everyone must bow. All this should give pause to educators abroad, as the astounding news emerges from a country whose educational plan seems to have made a deep impression on many American educators. In research, at least, the accomplishments of this system are undisputed. How was it possible that the German professors lost their hold on the minds of the students so completely? Why is the leadership of the great men of learning so conspicuously absent from the movement that is about to deflect the stream of German life into a new bed? As a product of higher German education, I shall attempt to expose some of its intrinsic shortcomings so as to build up a plea for the curbing of certain pernicious tendencies in American education. To achieve this purpose it is necessary to illuminate the prominent differences in the philosophy and routine of the American and German universities. Let us suppose a student from an American college be transferred to a German university. What will impress him most strongly will be the great independence of the German students. …