The cultural problem confronting American youth of Danish descent is a momentous one. It is none less than the whole problem of developing a characteristic American culture which will be an adequate expression of American life, rooted in the best American soil and corresponding to the peculiar American environment. It must not be regarded as a superficial task, and it cannot be solved according to a general pattern. Consideration must be given to the historical background and the present conditions, and the vision of the future must reach far out beyond immediate problems.

Culture is at the best a slow growth, but it is a growth. It is an expression of the life values developed by a people in its growth from a primitive economic society to a highly complex civilization. Our present American society has created an elaborate technical civilization that permits us to enjoy material 2life in a fashion undreamed of by our forefathers. But we must learn to distinguish between this more or less mechanical development which forms the framework of our life, and the personal and group values which fill out the framework and give life significance. The group values thus developed we call the culture of a people. Cultures differ according to environment and history. Even as the nature and temperament of a group is shaped by its struggle and development, so the culture developed by this group will be peculiar and characteristic. And if a people rises to the emergency and fills out each technical advance with corresponding life values, then an adequate culture is developed.

Culture is often considered only as the expression in behaviour and accomplishment which is highest and finest. If this be true then we could hardly speak of a culture for the average man in a group. But it is not correct. Art and literature are, of course, the greatest expression of cultural values created by man's spirit and ingenuity, but culture encompasses 3all the expressions of man's life that rise above the base and the mechanical. Culture is a complete expression and can be found quite as fully in a less educated group as in a more select circle. The fulness of a culture is dependent upon the capacity of the group whose life it expresses.

When a growth takes place in plant life, two processes will be found. Nourishment is drawn from the soil and the air, and the plant is shaped and developed according to the conditions with which it meets. In this fashion we must also regard cultural growth. Nourishment is drawn from the soil of history and tradition and from the air of present life. And the peculiar characteristics are developed in the contact with modern material and spiritual problems. We must not forget, however, that in plant life a seed of definite nature must be placed in the soil. Similarly, unless we go to the first primitive society, we will find individuals and groups with distinct traits at the very outset of cultural development. This is especially true in our American society.

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We of Danish origin cannot hope and should not attempt to live and develop as do the Danes in Denmark. We have as individuals and groups definitely given up the Danish environment and have willfully chosen the American. We must, therefore, banish all hope to be identical with our relatives abroad and must choose the path that will give us the best and the richest cultural future. We must plan for a future that is not in isolation from American life and culture but is in direct and intimate contact therewith. We must develop in such a way that we will carry on the heritage we have been given and make the best elements of it a vital factor in our lives. But we must not forget to shape our heritage so that it corresponds to our environment and may have survival value.

My hope is that American youth of Danish descent will be aware of the opportunity it has been given and the responsibility it carries. My hope is that it will realize the importance of contributing not only material values of economic and scientific importance, and that it will live a 5life filled with spiritual values that may enrich it and contribute to the good of the American people.

In order to do this it is necessary for us to become a vital part of growing America. We must realize the continuity of the spirit possessed by the first builders of our country, and our present life. We cannot give up the ideals for which they strove. We must work to realize the ambition of giving each and every man the opportunity to shape his own destiny and participate in the government of the people. Of course, we realize today that this will have to be done in a different fashion than that employed in the ruthless exploitation of the pre-depression age; but we must, nevertheless, seek the same goal as the men who first set foot on our Eastern shores and those who drew the first furrow in the Middle West. We should be at all times consciously and actively American. We should draw nourishment from the soil of American history and tradition and be firmly rooted in American life.

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But we also have to remember that as the seed contains potentially the structure of the plant, so do we inherit from the life of our forefathers our own characteristic structural make-up. Generation after generation of Danish people has struggled to develop good and surviving values that we cannot give up without stunting growth and retarding development. We are as individuals and as a group the result of ages of work and thought, and we must strive to maintain the advantage we thus culturally have given.

There are values here that go even deeper than the expression found in the Danish language, which we can only hope to maintain as a group expression for a few generations. Let us, therefore, not despair that with a disappearing language all cultural values will disappear, but let us also realize that the continued maintenance of that language will enrich our lives and strengthen our culture even as Americans. Those who immediately gave up their mother tongue have betrayed the country they hoped to help.

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Danish culture has found expression in many ways. It is expressed in song and literature. It has found outward form in institutions and group characteristics. It has given us an educational ideal and method that is unsurpassed. It has developed an appreciation of physical training and a gymnastic system that we must never forget. It has fostered a spirit of co-operation and an ability to work together that we are sorely in need of in our land of individualism. It has given us a sense of humor and an appreciation of the fullness of human living that we need in the midst of our present life which strikes us on the one hand as being outward and superficial and on the other as being enclosed and puritanical. And finally it has aided in the development of a deep and characteristic church life that belongs to and gives expression to the fundamental attitudes of our lives.

We cannot give this up without giving up all accumulated advantage. We would be reduced to primitive fundamentals and would thus benefit neither ourselves nor our country. And the more strongly Danish-American youth 8realizes this, the better an opportunity it will have for a contribution to American culture.

Adherence to our Danish culture does not necessarily mean a narrow policy of isolation and should not necessarily imply it. We can live in and develop our special group values and still live fully in American life. In fact, in no other way can we as a group live fully as Americans. But we must not retain our Danish characteristics and our Danish culture undeveloped. If we did we might as well place them in a museum at once. They must be brought constantly into contact with modern American conditions. The elements having surviving value should be strengthened and developed, and the elements not having that value should not be carried as dead-weight.

Therefore, we--the American youth born of Danish parents--should face the future with energy and courage. We should be aware of our opportunity to carry our Danish characteristics into a coming American culture. And we 9should face with hope the responsibility of carrying on this difficult task. If we give up, the work can never again be taken up. If we are lax and lazy, the future will suffer accordingly. If we have no vision and respect, we shall be limited, and the work will be unfulfilled.

Let us, therefore, with vision, courage, and respect strive to build on American ideals and tradition, to perpetuate Danish survival values into our growing culture, and to have a clear vision of a life as people, culturally strong and firmly rooted in the soil of our country.