y hesitant,
on the threshold of life. They are bursting with energy, eager, hopeful,
anxious to enter the stream of adult activity. Inexperienced, they
under-estimate the difficulties, taking up any line of activity that
promises quick results. They are impressionable and generally seeking "a
good life."

Such resources of energy and idealism exist in every generation and
reappear as the generations follow one another. Youth groups have played
active roles in one country after another where opportunities were
restricted by the establishment and revolutionary propagandists painted
a rosy future. Political nationalism in the eighteenth century and
economic and social emancipation in the nineteenth century mobilized
high school and college age youth in the Americas, Europe, Asia and
Africa.

It is folly to assert that human nature is a given and unalterable
quantity in every social situation and that since "you cannot change
human nature" intentional social changes are out of the question. The
facts are otherwise:

1. There is a wide diversity in human beings ranging from
herculean physical strength to pitiable weakness; from the
mental power of genius to the nonentity of imbecility; from
outstanding and unquestionable talent in arts and letters
to illiteracy and clumsy inefficiency. This wide diversity
in human capacity is one of the outstanding features of
human nature, recorded again and again in history and
encountered in all human aggregates.

2. There is a period in human life when the habit patterns
of childhood are exchanged for the habit patterns of adulthood.
At this turning point, youth is likely to follow
dynamic and purposeful leadership.

3. There is a wide diversity in social situations, from rock-ribbed
stability, to entire communities teetering on the brink
or plunging over the brink into the maelstrom of revolution.
Such diverse situations have existed again and again
during the 1750-1970 revolutionary epoch.

4. When a revolutionary situation develops, a revolutionary
leader well-established in a community trembling on the
brink of a revolutionary overturn may seize the reins of
power and establish a regime founded on opposition principles,
dedicated to another set of principles and practices.
When such a revolutionary coup is successful the bells of
history have tolled for the older order and the trumpets
of victory ha