I Need And Earnestly Pray For The...

I need and earnestly pray for the Spirit of the Lord in this important opportunity. With the guidance of that Spirit I would hope to do three things this morning: to add my testimony to what has been said here, to confront and acknowledge a serious problem, and then to offer some suggestions relating to the well-being of youth and their relationships with their parents and other adults. ¶

Perhaps many of you did not hear President McKay's stirring declaration of faith and confidence in youth at the beginning of this conference. To no message could I have more sincerely thrilled and responded. I add my testimony of joy and confidence in them. ¶

I am one who earnestly believes that teaching them and seeking to help them and bearing witness to them is as important as any missionary work being done in the world today. ¶

This morning Brother [Mark E.] Petersen delivered to the nation a moving expression of his conviction that with parents and in the homes of America lies the basis of much of the problem of our youth. To this I add my testimony. I believe that there is no force so vital in helping to shape the lives of the young, for good or ill, as the influence of parents and home. ¶

I would testify of another truth: In my judgment there has never been so great an opportunity or so urgent a need as there is today for this Church, its members, families, and homes, to share great and vital principles, programs, and inspiration with the youth of the Church and the nation. I believe we have an unparalleled opportunity for leadership and contribution. I would like to witness to you that our much-discussed, terribly tempted, often troubled, frequently undervalued, but wonderful, solid, promising youthful generation has knowledge of its needs and says to us, sometimes in the very words we have said to them, (when they have a chance to say it and ELDER MARl W D. HANKS 103 be listened to), that they know their needs and would like us to help them meet them. ¶

The second theme I should like to note is that there are very tragic problems involving many of the youth of the land. I confess that I still wonder at the propriety of quoting statistics that are unpleasant on the face of them and in their implications, without time to properly consider backgrounds and circumstances, but I believe that we have no time to lose, and that sometime, somewhere, parents and other adults must be confronted with the facts. Let me give an example of what I mean. ¶

The United States Navy a time ago instituted a program of morale-building among its personnel — a wonderful program based on fundamental principles of morality and responsibility and patriotism with which the Church has always been concerned and which are in operation among us. The results of the Navy program are reported to be excellent, but let me report a few of the sobering statistics that motivated the institution of the program and which still reflect, at least in some measure, existing circumstances. ¶

During one six-month period, it was reported in public print, the Navy brig population totaled enough men to man the entire submarine fleet of the nation. ¶

The Navy was starting a new courtmartial every two and a half minutes of every single working day. Enough men were deserting each year to man twelve guided-missile cruisers, enough being dishonorably discharged to man twenty destroyers, and enough being hospitalized for neuro-psychiatric reasons alone to man five Forrestal-type carriers. ¶

The American Social Health Association estimates an annual venereal disease-infected population in the United States of 200,000 under twenty years of age. In any one year, fewer than 50,000 of these are reported. Most of the remainder are undiscovered, many until they make their mark in tragedy in the lives of unsuspecting families or others. ¶

It is also noted that there were 207,000 illegitimate births recorded in this nation last year. ¶

These statistics are startling enough, but they are indicative of another problem which especially alarms some knowledgeable observers. Listen to this recently published statement: ¶

"As we fail to reverse the rising trend in juvenile delinquency, we approach a critical situation. Our national resources for detention, treatment, or rehabilitation of the pre-delinquent or the delinquent child are already inadequate, unevenly distributed, and severely strained. They will be unable to cope with further increases in our youth population and with the rise in delinquency." ¶

In plain words, this notes the apprehension in the hearts of many who believe that we cannot possibly produce specialists, experts, guidance counselors, psychologists, social workers fast enough to meet the increasing need for them. ¶

Obviously, then, the solution lies elsewhere. There has to be another answer. ¶

We do not minimize the work of the experts and trained workers. While the Church is primarily interested in prevention, the message of the gospel is one of restoration and rehabilitation also. ¶

The first principles of the gospel are faith and repentance, based in the love of God and fellow man. ¶

The answer to the problem of American youth, however, cannot be left with the expert and the specialist. It lies in the hands, in the hearts, in the willing spirits of the parents and other interested adults who can bless them and help them meet their problems — this great solid majority of wonderful young people who want to do well, who are not now in trouble and do not want to be, but who need help if they are to become the constructive, contributing, wholesome human beings they would like to be. ¶

My third theme, then, is to consider some of the needs of youth. ¶

I mention first (and no one will be surprised by it) that young people need the love and approval of their parents and of others whose lives influence them and who are important to them. They need to be accepted as they are and in light of what they can become, and they need to be motivated through love to want to be the very best they are capable of being. They need a feeling of belonging, of solid attachment to something stable. They need the confidence and the respect, the faith and the high expectations of their elders. Let me quote again the marvelous words of Goethe: "If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain as he is, but if you treat him as if he were what he could be and ought to be, he will become what he could be and ought to be." ¶

I have in my possession a copy of a letter written from the plains by a pioneer mother who had just buried her husband. Brokenhearted, she took her children and continued the journey with the great faith that had moved her from Europe across an ocean and now moved her to cross a continent. She wrote a letter to her husband's parents, notifying them of the death of their son. Her words moved me so much at the first reading that I could not forget them. ¶

She said: ¶

"Dear Father and Mother: Out of my broken heart I have to tell you of the death on the plains of your dearly beloved son and my best friend." And then she went on to tell them the story of his passing. ¶

Is it not certainly true that the best friends we have in this world ought to be those of our own household? What kind of atmosphere would youth grow up in if that feeling were in the homes of the Latter-day Saints and perhaps through us in the homes of a great many good, faithful, loyal people in this nation and the world? How would it be for the spiritual prosperity of the young if they were assured of a love that endures and inspires and allows for imperfections and failings and mistakes and for repentance? ¶

I do not think I will hear anything in this world more sweet and moving, and to me as a parent, more satisfying, than some words I heard from the tongue of a four-year-old in the middle of the night some years ago. There had been a childish infraction which was somewhat serious since it involved the use of a butcher knife between two little children, and since I have normal love for them and some normal anxieties for their future, I had interfered. There was a period of instruction, some punishment to emphasize it, a few tears, some explanations, and a time of selfexamination. We were awakened very early the next morning to hear the two little girls talking. The three-year-old was in bed with the four-year-old, being comforted from some nocturnal fright. ¶

We heard the four-year-old say to her, "Don't be frightened, Nancy. You will be all right." And then, "Do you know something, Nancy? Do you know that Daddy and Mommy love us even when we are naughty. They're 'dis trying to teach us." ¶

O the Lord help us to have wisdom enough and faith enough always to help them believe it and to make them know that their Father in heaven feels this way, also, that it is to us and to him they must turn in repentance, in faith, and in humility. ¶

With this love and affection and confidence, young people need to be instructed. Someone once said that we habitually underestimate their intelligence and overestimate their experience. ¶

We expect them to act like miniature adults and yet often we do not teach them. ¶

What is it that we need to teach them? We can be sure of their perceptiveness. We can be sure that they will see and hear and absorb and imitate, and therefore it is vital that what they see and hear and absorb is worthy of imitation. We need to teach them, as the Lord has taught us to teach them, the first principles of the gospel. We need to teach them prayer. We need to help them get a sense of their relationship with their Heavenly Father that will make them want to walk uprightly before him, that will help them to seek objectives and goals that go beyond the material. We should endeavor to teach them to want to educate and discipline their minds and to keep their bodies clean and healthy. In their youth they need to be taught that there are things worth sacrificing for, they need to learn good citizenship, patriotism, respect for others, honor and honesty, courage. They need to be taught to love good literature and beauty and God's world. ¶

There is an enlightening, if somewhat sobering picture of what our young people need to learn, in the words of a Red Chinese intelligence officer describing captured American soldiers: ¶

"He has weak loyalties to his family, his community, his country, his religion, and his fellow soldiers. His concept of right and wrong is hazy. He is basically materialistic and he is an opportunist. ¶

He is ignorant of social values. . . . There is little or no understanding, even among university graduates, of United States' political history and philosophy or of their own freedom's safeguards and how these allegedly operate within their own decadent system." ¶

Our young people need to be taught many basic things which we cannot assume they will acquire outside the home. ¶

We need to teach them there, and then to seek to spread our influence and effectiveness into the schools, the neighborhood, the community, and the nation. ¶

I love some words attributed to Samuel Taylor Coleridge concerning what we should teach our children. It is said that a man widely known for his productive acres, sculptured gardens, and bright children, announced in the presence of Mr. Coleridge that he would not prejudice his children toward religion but would leave them to decide when they grew up. Coleridge is reported to have said to him, "Bravo, this is a very progressive idea. ¶

Why do you not apply it to your fields and orchards and gardens in the future. ¶

Do not prejudice the soil to seed or weeding or cultivation, the trees to pruning or thinning, the gardens to bulbs or planning. Why not see if they will not just grow up and decide to be what you hope they will be?" ¶

Young people need to be taught. ¶

In addition to these fundamentals, youth need discipline, guidance. They need to be made accountable for their actions. They deserve to have fair rules established which are understood and then to have the rules consistently, fairly, and firmly administered. ¶

Youth need high ideals and to be somehow moved to want to have the will power and the resoluteness to identify with them and to serve them. ¶

We talk here of character, of the convictions and courage and conscience which combine to produce and preserve much that is good about mankind. ¶

A conference or two ago President McKay made a statement which has been echoed all over the nation, and I suspect beyond its borders, when he said that flabbiness of character and not flabbiness of muscle lies at the root of many of the problems of American youth. ¶

Young people need to know that selfesteem is a prized possession and that self-esteem comes only when we live a life consistent with honor and with high principles which we know to be good. ¶

As a boy I had the blessing of a wonderful mother who moved me to read and to memorize. One of the most fruitful sources of wisdom that I found were the writings of Seneca, a Roman senator. Then one day I read the life of Seneca. Until then I had thought him to be one of the strongest and finest and most admirable men with whom I had become acquainted through literature. But I read in that book how Seneca, lacking the courage of his convictions, had stood on the floor of the Roman Senate and justified Nero's murder of his own mother. I fell out of love with Seneca at that moment. I admired him no longer. My experience and witness is that youth generally have little admiration and confidence for adults who say one thing and do another, however superior their intellect may be. ¶

Activity is one of the pressing needs of youth everywhere. They need to be permitted to express themselves freely, creatively, responsibly, in wholesome action, under good leadership, in favorable circumstances, with worthwhile companions. I listened to a discussion between two wardens in our city at a convention. They agreed that there were two things almost invariably true about the inmates under their charge: ¶

1. They had never had a chance to take part in organized activity under good leadership. ¶

2. They had never learned responsible attitudes toward others. ¶

Well, someone has to be the scoutmaster; someone must be the quorum adviser; someone needs to lead the chorus and to be the coach. Someone has to be interested enough if our youth are going to get what they need to mature happily. There has to be someone to lead them. Perhaps it is not inappropriate to quote some words already alluded to in this conference, "If not by me, by whom?" ¶

Young people need to be blessed with the opportunity to work. They must learn that there is no excellence without labor. ¶

Young people need to find faith in God and immortality, in the purposefulness of life and the perpetuation of human personality beyond the grave. ¶

They need to know that families can be eternal. They need to know for themselves the sacredness of service and the holiness of prayer. People who really know youth and who have had reason to assess some of their problems are saying wherever I go that what the young lack most importantly is faith and courage; faith and courage — ingredients with which they may best be endowed in the home, tools which are not passed out in college, weapons which are not to be discovered in any military arsenal. ¶

Finally, I mention that in all of these things and in every other worthwhile objective for them, youth need the example of adults whom they can honor and revere. In listening to young people all over the land I have heard very few references to the missile gap. It is not this gap that worries youth, but the gap between precept and performance, between knowledge and conduct, between ritual and righteousness, between what the adults say and what the adults do. Youth, after all, is responsive to the values which the adult generations in fact — not in theory — exalt. ¶

Said Plato, "What is honored in a country will be cultivated there." ¶

And, we might add, in a home and family, in a neighborhood, a community, a church. ¶

God bless us that we may recognize their great value and potential, that we may understand their problems, and that we may offer to them, out of the sincerity of our love for them, what they need. In the name of Jesus Christ Amen. ¶