Young Tarheels

Despite many a national survey, the U. S. Youth Problem is still far from a national solution. Last week North Carolina tackled a more modest job: some of the problems of youth in North Carolina.

The Rockefeller-endowed General Education Board, University of North Carolina, WPA and NYA collaborated to examine nearly the entire youthful population of eight representative city and country districts: 44,963 Tarheels aged 6 to 25, rich & poor, white & black. Their report, Paths to Maturity, written by the university's Sociologist Gordon W. Lovejoy, found that:

> More than a fourth of the white children and more than half the Negroes live in families broken by death, separation, divorce.

> A good two-thirds of young Tarheels attend church (majority: Baptist) at least once a week. But to many the church fails to bring comfort. Said an unhappy little girl: "I feel the Lord want me to do something and I don't know what it is."

> Negro children surpass whites in liking for scientific books, poetry, newspapers.

>Despite a State law requiring school attendance until 14, one white boy in nine and one Negro in four quit before that age. Only one white in five and one Negro in 15 graduate from high school; one white in 22 and one Negro in 100 from college.

> Nearly half of North Carolina's high-school boys and girls (white and Negro) plan to enter a profession, but only one white boy in 31 and one Negro in 175 realize that aim when they leave school. Few white boys plan to take a job as a servant, 18 times as many actually do so.

Sociologist Lovejoy's prime recommendation to the eight investigated communities : have schools give pupils more vocational guidance. Viewing with alarm "the appalling consequences of permitting practically one-half of our youths to believe that they can crowd themselves into a few occupations," he declared: "It is up to some institution . . . unquestionably the schools . . . to bring the dreams of youth and the realities of available jobs into harmony."

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