Conclusion

Abstract

This chapter concludes that, through an interrogation of organizational magazines, this book has demonstrated the centrality of the countryside in constructions of good citizenship in youth movements of the mid-century. The countryside thus served as a canvas on which young people could develop into the good citizens of the future. This was a rural idyll for a new generation; one in which modern ideas of fitness and leisure were transferred onto the rural landscape and presented as a path to modern citizenship, an ideal which included traditional notions of service with a growing liberal agenda. Despite these shifts, there were a number of continuities in approaches to youth across the mid-century, particularly in terms of the way class and gender shaped training.