represent a very high percent age of the American people, at least. We're not directly concerned with the first three, but since everyone here probably knows some one in each category, they should hold a sort of secondary interest for us, so let's just run through them briefly.

First is the teen-ager, a fairly repulsive ward for which wo need a good synonym. There are a great many bo oks in print about people between 13 and 20, and most of them either present the adolescent as a delinquent or criminal, or are supposed to be very funny. (Dobie Gillis, for example, is a direct descendant of the Booth Tarkington boys.) Almost nowhere do we find any real recognition of the fact that a young ster of 16 is almost unbelievably sensitive, perceptive, capable of living a rich emotional life, and capable of tremendous achievement. The se aro the years when the whole pattern of the individual's life is being shaped; you and I are what we are partly because of what happened to us in high school.

Perhaps we could understand adults better if we knew how they become what they are; perhaps if we had more books about adolescents that shown them as they are, we could treat them more intelligently. We'll never make it any ot her way, because the first aim of any reasonably bright teen-ager is to keep his parents and teachers from finding out about anything that really matters to him. So we go on trying to make these dynamic and terribly energetic people conform to an adult world that's hypocritical, stupid, full of anxie ty, and almost devoid of pleasure; and they grow up to become the same kind of people as their parents, which is bad.

Except for James Joyce's PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, Salinger's CATCHER IN THE RYE, and some of Hemingway's early short stories about the boy, Nick, I can think of no ono except Colette who has shown any real insight into what goes on inside these people. Colette perhaps underestimates that romantic and idealistic phase that some young people go through. Maureen Daly wrote a nice perceptive book called SEVENTEENTH SUMMER about thirty years ago; since then sho has apparently written nothing but trash for newspapers and magazines.

Second, there are the people with a real capacity for love