The Good Old Days that Never Were

More and more one hears it said that the present age—in particular its young people—is more decadent and confused than any in the past. Pessimists, self-made prophets, and too many preachers seem to take delight in decrying the conditions of our society. (Some even make their living at it.) This pessimism is often born of a misreading and therefore a misuse of history. The writer of Ecclesiastes warns in the seventh chapter and tenth verse: “Say not thou what is the cause that the former days were better than these? For thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this.”

It is tempting to conclude that many in the Church who forecast doom, who cry out against change in society, who complain about the fads and vagaries of youth and brandish statistics of increased crime, sin, and immorality, are consciously or unconsciously using scare tactics to expand the Kingdom of God. (Accuracy would be better served if, when comparing one age or era to another, they made a careful distinction between an absolute number and a percentage.) The issue here is the nature of the Gospel: Does the Gospel need to be presented against a background of national and worldwide fear, gloom, and despair to be effective? Surely its impact is not dependent upon cultural crepe-hanging.

Too often the response of the alarmist is born of ignorance. Although he may justifiably be repulsed by the events and trends of the day, he is likely to be blind to the fact that they are hardly unique or new. Most, though not all, of our current problems and ruptures are modern counterparts of past circumstances.

To listen to some interpreters of our present age, life in the first century (or the nineteenth) was close to ideal. But the basic issues of human nature and society have not changed; we have just achieved more efficient and flamboyant ways of expressing ourselves. A quick review of the past, particularly of problems concerning higher education and youth, shows us we are not living in “the worst of times.”

Unrest on College Campuses. The history of higher education, European as well as American, is bursting with incidents of college unrest, rioting, and rebellion. Oxford University has an extensive early heritage of pitched battles between “town and gown,” conflicts that involved hundreds of participants and resulted in more than a few deaths. Cambridge University was founded in the early thirteenth century as a direct response to three days of rioting and killing, which began after students killed a bartender. Nothing up to our own time, including the current unrest and violence on campus, surpasses the violence of the early medieval university.

Harvard University was the site of numerous strikes and riots in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, including the Great Butter Rebellion of 1766, the Bread and Butter Rebellion of 1805, and the Rotten Cabbage Rebellion of 1807. Yale’s first Fireman’s Riot, in 1841, was serious enough, but more like a maypole dance compared to the Second Fireman’s Riot, 1854, in which students as well as firemen were killed. In succeeding years, faculty and presidents alike were whipped and kidnapped, and a few were even shot by students. Other students went on window-smashing rampages, dynamited buildings, and in general created havoc, often as a means of protesting inadequate learning conditions. It is important, and possibly even comforting, to note that the focus of modern collegiate rebellion has shifted beyond the kitchen to more cosmic issues.

Student Control of Universities. This “demand” has deep roots in the history of higher education. Continental medieval universities were characterized by two basic models, the University of Paris and the University of Bologna. The early history of the University of Bologna featured student control of education. Professors were required to obtain student permission in order to be absent from the city and then were forced to sign a bond, insuring that they would return within a specified time limit. Professors were paid by the students, and the most popular received the highest pay. If too few students showed up for a lecture, the professor was fined. At that, the student determined the curriculum, the order of subject matter, and who would teach. Professors could be fined for skipping the most difficult sections of lectures and for failing to complete their arranged lectures on schedule. This was made even more difficult by the often imposed rule that professors should begin at the sound of the bell and had to finish at least one minute after the ending bell sounded. Most disgracing of all, professors were required to obtain permission from the students before marrying. Such rules and policies make current demands for student participation appear less menancing and certainly less novel.

Irreligion and Disbelief on Campuses. Religion and education were mutually dependent in our early history, from the time of the nine colonial colleges. The nineteenth century witnessed the birth of close to 600 church-related colleges before the Civil War. These institutions were administered by presidents, trustees, and teachers, most of whom had strong Protestant religious convictions. This situation changed after the mid-nineteenth century with the advent of the secular university and the dawn of the new industrial-technological age.

To assume that higher education and religion have continually been closely associated in American higher education is false. A more critical look at the history of American higher education shows that irreligion on college campuses is not new. Disbelief was quite common as early as the immediate post-Revolutionary period. During that era when approximately 10 per cent of Americans held formal church membership, when the blasphemous pamphlets of Thomas Paine were the most popular reading of the day, and when French deism seemed irresistable, colleges were not unaffected. At Yale in 1795, one student could think of only eleven others who could be termed “professors of religion.” Another could remember only four or five “religionists” in 1799—and recalled that at communion, only one undergraduate appeared (W. H. Cowley, A History of American Higher Education, unpublished manuscript, 1964, chap. 4, p. 9). Most of the handful of colleges operating between the Revolution and the second Great Awakening succumbed to the effects of that highly secularized age. The fact that this age was soon followed by religious revival on college campuses may give hope to those who view contemporary higher education as a bastion of disbelief.

Rioting and Draft Resistance. This phenomenon is not unique to our nation or time either, nor has it always accompanied the decline of nations. The 1863 draft and race riots in New York City makes Watts and Detroit seem mild. In that confrontation, seventy were killed during three days of burning, rioting, and looting, in response to new draft calls. Telephone wires were cut. The city police chief was beaten, dragged through the streets, thrown in a horsefeeding pond, and rolled in the filth of the gutter. The police station was burned while rioters fought pitched battles with police. Those victimized most by the rioters were the rich and their homes, the blacks (even a black children’s orphanage), and children (James McCague, “Long Hot Summer—1863,” Mankind, I, 8, pp. 10–18). Labor riots and melees in the late nineteenth century also underline the fact that present rioting and lawlessness may not automatically signal the end of our nation’s greatness.

Immorality, rebellion among the young, wars, racism, and world conflict are often mentioned as indicators of the depravity and seriousness of our times, and yet each of these areas, too, has prototypes as far back as the classical world, not to mention medieval and early modern times. One need only remember or read about our own post-World War I era to realize that hate, bigotry, killing, racism, immorality, and rebellion are nothing new.

That the past may have been more riotous and immoral than the present gives no cause to rejoice about the present, nor any kind of justification for current ills in our society. What I am asserting is that a generation (like today’s parents and grandparents) that tries to bury its troubles and anxieties in alcohol, illicit sex, hate, tacit approval of several varieties of violence, and status-seeking can hardly accuse a generation that turns to drugs and free love of “going to the dogs”. Those of us who consider ourselves “young” often wonder why members of the older generation (sometimes a matter of attitude rather than chronology) take such a dim view of modern times. We cynically wonder if it is not partly because their safe, protected, comfortable, and too often segregated world has been challenged and stirred by conscience and idealism. We hasten to observe that the young have yet to demonstrate workable solutions to the myriad of problems, both recurring and new, that face us.

There are major differences between our era and those of past times, including these: (1) there are more people; (2) we have developed better and quicker methods to broadcast current events (and by doing so we change not only the effects but sometimes the very nature of the events); (3) we are probably more honest and open about our problems today; (4) high expectations for American society, too long unrealized and now coupled with renewed vision and idealism, have come to haunt us and make us feel frustrated and impatient; (5) we have achieved a certain control over nature and life, including the possibility of self-destruction on a grandiose scale.

Yet these differences have not seemed to forestall the resurgence of important problems in society, especially among college youth. If we tend to view these problems as recurrences, we can be optimistic, because we know they have been solved before.

Youth are the focus for many who decry the age in which we live. Yet we should be thankful for a good deal of what our young people today are saying, and particularly for their idealism, which so often becomes blunted and deformed by what we call the “harsh realities” of life. Some of us who have become used to those harsh realities (and at times even supportive of them) may not like the way youth express that idealism, or the clothes they wear, or even the surroundings in which they live, but part of what they are saying and living is encouraging. This is true when we view the majority of youth, and even when we listen to the much-maligned minority, who are described by a variety of demeaning terms. Here is some of what they are saying and living:

1. People and life are more important than money, goods, and material objects, and even some traditional structures that tend to perpetuate the priorities of the material world.

2. Quality of life is more essential and desirable than quantity; in other words, what happens is more important than how many we claim it is happening to.

3. Action is more important than profession—in fact, profession amounts to hypocrisy unless accompanied by related action.

4. Cooperation is often more important and regenerative than competition.

This is encouraging, because those four principles are matters about which Jesus spoke often. He often mentioned the danger of becoming captured by the material world, and he continually called us to lead a pure and undefiled life that is pleasing to God and beneficial to man—to care for quality more than quantity. Furthermore, his actions always defined his profession. And he certified the principle of cooperation by his relationship with God and mankind.

If youth can live by what they propose, the future is bright. Perhaps we can even dare to hope for solutions to such problems of racism, poverty, war, urban decay, and the misuse of environment.

Gerald C. Tiffin is professor of general education at San Jose Bible College in San Jose, California. He earned a Ph.D. in the history of education at Stanford.

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