The Youth’s Dream of Life

The Youth’s Dream of Life is a book by Charles Franklin Thwing, the American Congregational minister and educator who lived from 1853 to 1937 and who served as president of Western Reserve University and the associated Adelbert College in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1890 to 1921. Thwing was one of the leading American college presidents of his period and produced substantial writing on higher education, on the religious and moral formation of young people, and on the broader cultural questions of late nineteenth and early twentieth century American intellectual life.

Thwing wrote extensively on the practical and philosophical questions facing young people who were trying to make their way through the substantial cultural and educational transitions that early twentieth century American life involved. The American college population was expanding rapidly during the years when Thwing was writing, with substantial numbers of young people from middle class and lower middle class backgrounds entering higher education for the first time in their families. The questions about how to choose a profession, how to develop a serious religious and moral life, how to handle the practical and intellectual challenges of college work, and how to prepare for adult life were all subjects on which an experienced college president could offer substantial counsel to a substantial audience of young readers.

The Youth’s Dream of Life addresses these questions in the broadly hortatory and inspirational mode that characterised much of Thwing’s writing for younger audiences. The book is essentially a sustained meditation on the moral and practical resources that young people need to develop in order to live the kind of meaningful adult lives that their best youthful aspirations point toward. The treatment combines practical advice on specific subjects with the broader religious and moral framework within which Thwing understood the developmental tasks of young adulthood.

The book reflects the assumptions of early twentieth century American Protestant educational culture. Thwing wrote from within the broadly liberal Protestant tradition that dominated American college life during the period, with substantial emphasis on character formation, on personal religious commitment, and on the practical contributions to civic and economic life that the educated young person should be preparing to make.

The book is mostly of interest now to historians of American higher education and of early twentieth century American Protestant educational culture. It pairs naturally with Thwing’s other writings on college life and on the formation of young people.