countries, to complain about today's young people. The truth is that the more young people are put down the more likely they are to stay down. Decrying young people becomes self-fulfilling.

As a society, we tend to dwell on those who use drugs, those with social problems and those who fail. Yet they are only a relatively small group. They certainly deserve consideration but that consideration should not be to the exclusion of those young people who do Bermuda proud.

True, there are young people with problems. Some of those problems are of their own making because they have failed to grasp the opportunities offered to them. Some have simply been unable to take advantage of opportunities because they come from a destructive social background. But many are victims of a society which has allowed them to pass through a school system without testing their qualifications or preparing them for the real world. There has also been as tendency in Bermuda to imprison the young rather than correct the young thus teaching them anger and criminality.

But there are large numbers of young Bermudians in all fields, including a major triathlete at age 14, who are doing well. Just look at the large numbers in this newspaper's People columns who are graduating from colleges and schools abroad with well rounded school careers and very good academic success. In the past few days we have seen graduates in biochemistry, business and office education, marketing, management science, sociology, and physical education. The spread is wide and a large number have achieved these degrees with excellent grades.

We were highly impressed by the four young women law students who made the news because they were busy working for and reorganising a law students' society. Then there was the young woman, a summer student at The Royal Gazette , who organised the highly successful day against violence.

Every day, outstanding young people from all walks of life in Bermuda have appeared in this newspaper receiving scholarship awards from various businesses, law firms and banks, all of them headed for higher learning.

Take a look at the qualifications of the 13 young people who received the Bank of Bermuda Scholarships for 1997 which were announced this week. The young man awarded the Sir John Cox scholarship for post-graduate studies is an honours graduate of a top US boarding school now in pursuit of a doctoral degree from MIT. It does not come much better than that. The young woman who received the Sir Henry Tucker University Scholarship this year is an honours graduate of Mount Saint Agnes, and a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award winner now studying for a combined honours degree in English and history at McMaster University. How proud her family must be.

If you look at the lists of graduates from various local schools and the colleges they are to attend abroad you might well be surprised by the high quality of the institutions to which a number of them have gained admission.

They have competed for the best places with the best of the United States and they have succeeded. These young people are doing themselves, their families and Bermuda proud.