Images of Youth: Age, Class, and the Male Youth Problem, 1880-1920.

Studies of turn-of-the-century adult attitudes about treatment of youth all contend that a major shift in perceptions of youth occurred but they differ concerning the reasons behind the changes. Some argue that a changed treatment of youth, especially the "discovery" of an adolescent life cycle with its many implications, began in the late nineteenth century when adults isolated middle-class youth in educational institutions (John Gillis, Frank Musgrove). Others contend that anxieties unleashed by allegedly precocious, semi-independent working-class youth led adults to invent an adolescent life phase in order to justify efforts to institutionalize them (Stephen Humphries, John Springhall). They also differ concerning the importance of cultural and biological changes in the altered societal perceptions of youth, the timing of the changes and the extent to which societies intended to control youth.

Harry Hendrick argues that changes in British perceptions and policy concerning youth began primarily in the Edwardian rather than the Victorian period and that change began with an altered professional middle-class image of working-class boys. He contends that the critical new youth classification adolescence "only became popular among social investigators and youth workers after circa 1904 ..." and that adolescence "had no linguistic value in the Victorian description of youth"(10). He thereby opposes those, such as Gillis and Musgrove, who contend that the adolescent concept first gained general acceptance in regard to middle-class youths' extended dependency resulting from their secondary school experience during the nineteenth century. A negative perception of working-class youth coincided with fears of crowds and cities to bring about largely private efforts, defined by Hendrick as the "professional middle class and its circle,"(9) to socially control youth through labor exchanges, continuation schools and leisure time organizations.

Hendrick effectively argues that the images of working-class youth were closely tied to the political, economic, social and cultural issues of the time. The professional middle class was upset by what they considered to be the long-term implications of the "boy labor" problem. The excessive occupational mobility, blind-alley employment and decline of old-style apprenticeships had, in their minds, brought about a deterioration in character. These problems, according to Hendrick, reached an intense stage during the Edwardian period when they coexisted with fears of urban degeneration and racial deterioration, dramatic changes in the social sciences, the reinterpretation of individualism and collectivism, the emergence of class politics and the search for political order.

The social sciences, especially child psychology, helped transform society's perception of youth. By 1911, Hendrick argues, G. Stanley Hall, J. W. Slaughter, Thomas Clouston and others had made adolescence "a social fact of popular concern among various social and professional groups" rather than a mere idea "confined to medical practitioners"(111). It was now popularly perceived as a separate stage of life requiring special treatment by psychologists, educationalists and law enforcement officials.

While the psychological aspect was critical in defining the adolescent, Hendrick argues that it "was always accompanied by, and in many respects actually determined by, the interests and attitudes of social class"(120). Hendrick cites many contemporary reformers, including Sidney Webb and R. A. Bray, to prove that the popularly perceived vices of the adolescent--indiscipline, lack of self control, precocious independence and poor character--were thought to be most characteristic of working-class youth. By the Edwardian period the language of the social sciences, especially social psychology, had imprisoned the adolescent in a personality image.

In a final section on "Solving the Problem," Hendrick deals with private and government attempts to control youth through youth organizations, the Youth Employment Service and day continuation schools. He argues that reformers' ultimate goal was the solution of social problems growing out of the larger crisis of the economy, labor, racial hygiene and political stability. Headrick attributes the failure of the Youth Employment Service and day continuation schools to the business community's desire for cheap labor and disinterest in reforming youth. However, Headrick fails to bring much evidence to bear on this important division within the middle class concerning youth.

Hendrick has provided new support for the tie between youth images and policy and the economic/social problems confronting Britain during the Edwardian period. He adds strength to the thesis previously advanced by Musgrove and Humphries that adults have conspired to keep adolescents in an inferior social and economic position and has challenged Springhall's minority view that regards adults as more altruistic "agents of socialization." The massive institutionalization of youth that occurred through out Europe in the period 1880-1910, although not dealt with in this work, would seem to support Hendrick's rather than Springhall's view. But the lack of a comparative dimension prevents Hendrick from fully understanding what was unique or similar in the English response to the youth question. Another shortcoming is his neglect of "girl labor," despite his objection that "boy labor" sufficiently makes his case.

J. Robert Wegs University of Notre Dame