The Now & Future Kings

Sir: My husband, who teaches at Brown University, and I, who teach at the Rhode Island School of Design, are filled with enthusiasm and optimism for your young men and women of the year [Jan. 6].

Long hair and short skirts really are only variations on the crew cuts and dirty saddle shoes of our own generation, but the compassion, honesty, earnestness and lack of hypocrisy of today's student are far beyond anything that seemed possible to us.

MEG LIGHT Providence

Sir: Thank you for honoring us with a distinction usually reserved for the great. The outcry of a generation is finally being taken seriously. All of us are for action: we see things that are wrong and demand change. We are thinkers, cool guys, picketers, students, workers, fighters, but most of all we are the future of America—and that doesn't scare us.

STEVE FORRER '69 Gettysburg College Gettysburg, Pa.

Sir: With few magazines having guts enough to picture American youth as anything but an infectious disease, it is refreshing to find a well-rounded feature on us.

JOSEPH A. SMITH '70 Urbana College Urbana, Ohio

Sir: You've managed to tell an entire generation what they are, who they are, and where they are. Isn't it wonderful to know someone cares!

KENNETH ROGOFF Sewickley, Pa.

Sir: What you say about the "generational gap" puzzles me. It seems to me that just because today's kids have less embarrassment and more articulateness they communicate with their elders rather more effectively than less. Most of today's youngsters seem to me smart enough to realize that if the Old Man survived the crossing of the Rhine or did his time in the Fast Carrier Task Force, he's not apt to be unduly shocked by existentialism, illegitimacy or the sound of a four-letter word.

The "under 25s" are indeed mostly great people, quite prepared to meet the challenges that lie ahead. Making reasonable allowance for the changing context of the times, this is neither more nor less than could have been said in 1957, 1947, 1937, and probably much earlier. (PROFESSOR) JOHN ROGER FREDLAND U.S. Naval Academy Annapolis, Md.

Sir: Perhaps the Man of the Year award should have been given to the preceding and older generation. It is their progress that has enabled us "under 25s" to read more, see more, and understand more. By observing the failures, successes and trials of our predecessors, we have come to a conclusion: Whatever we're going to do, we have to do it NOW. We can't wait, and neither can the rest of the world.

LAURIE CARLSON, AGED 15 Long Beach, Calif.

Sir:

Sir: I concur with your selection of Man of the Year, but as the mother of two of them I can't help being frightened. I fail to see much real altruism or idealism in my children or their friends. I see, rather, a perverted, sentimental self-centeredness. They may castigate us for money-and success-grubbing, but their attitude is, "Just go right on grubbing and keep that money flowing, old drudges, because we are too fine and sensitive to drudge or do without."