"Youth sees too far to see how near it is to seeing farther.' '‑Edwin R. Robinson.

Consistently criticizing youth for its nearsightedness, the older generation forgets that it is they who have taught us what we know and it is they who have failed to teach us what we do not know.

The bureaucrats give us a uniform and a gun, send us out to fight and die for them, and then they tell us that we are too young, immature, and inexperienced to vote. We are not too young to die . . . just too young to choose for whom and for what we wish to die.

Our inexperience is not entirely our own fault. The schools insist upon teaching us useless courses. We are kept busy memorizing sentence structures, mathematical principles, and the correct pronunciation of various words in French or German.

It is not that youth does not want to learn why he is being asked to die; it is just that few or the available courses help us understand what is presently going on outside of the classroom.

The majority of classes today are merely obsolete in in the way they are being taught. Why do they teach history? To instill national pride? Can anyone be proud of what happened to the American Indian? Is anyone proud of the unnecessary wars like the ones with Mexico and Spain?

If teachers would show how their subjects tie in with what is happening in the world today, we might remember something for more than one semester.

How many students can explain just what devaluation is, what causes it, and how it affects people? For that matter, just how many teachers can tell their students what devaluation is?

If teachers would venture off the beaten track a bit and try to relate what they are teaching to world events, no matter how obscure the event or abstract the relation, maybe teens would be able to gain a little experience in worldly affairs.

If the educational optometrist works hard at a corrective lens, perhaps soon farsighted students will be nearsighted enough to see farther.