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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32608-8.txt b/32608-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2968b72 --- /dev/null +++ b/32608-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2296 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Some War-time Lessons, by Frederick P. +(Frederick Paul) Keppel + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Some War-time Lessons + The Soldier's Standards of Conduct; The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship; What Have We Learned? + + +Author: Frederick P. (Frederick Paul) Keppel + + + +Release Date: May 30, 2010 [eBook #32608] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/somewartimelesso00kepprich + + + + + +SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS + + * * * * * + +COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS +SALES AGENTS + +NEW YORK +LEMCKE & BUECHNER +30-32 EAST 20TH STREET + +LONDON +HUMPHREY MILFORD +AMEN CORNER, E.C. + +SHANGHAI +EDWARD EVANS & SONS, LTD. +30 NORTH SZECHUEN ROAD + + * * * * * + + +SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS + +The Soldier's Standards of Conduct +The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship +What Have We Learned? + +by + +FREDERICK PAUL KEPPEL + +Third Assistant Secretary of War + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +New York +Columbia University Press +1920 + +All rights reserved + +Copyright, 1920 +By Columbia University Press + +Printed from type, January, 1920 + +Printed at +The·Plimpton·Press +Norwood·Mass·U·S·A + + + + +TO + +NEWTON D. BAKER + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + I. THE AMERICAN SOLDIER AND HIS STANDARDS + OF CONDUCT 9 + + II. THE WAR AS A PRACTICAL TEST OF AMERICAN + SCHOLARSHIP 36 + + III. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? 66 + + + + +SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS + +THE AMERICAN SOLDIER AND HIS STANDARDS OF CONDUCT[1] + + +Perhaps the greatest laboratory experiment in human conduct in the +history of the world has been the development of our Army during the +past two years. Under the provisions of the Selective Service Law, this +Army has represented a cross section of American male humanity--even +more representative indeed than was intended; for in the efforts of the +Local Boards to send men who could best be spared, many found their way +into the ranks who were handicapped from the start by low mentality or +disease. What were the guiding forces which operated upon this body of +nearly four million men? + +In the first place, our country entered the war with a great moral +purpose, untinged by any trace of national or individual selfishness. +We really have to go back to the Crusades to find the like. And, as +then, each man supplemented this great basal impulse with whatever was +to him the strongest incentive--religion, patriotism, pride of family or +state or regiment, the desire to excel in what all were attempting. + +In the second place, thanks primarily to the vision and determination of +one man, the individual appeal to each soldier as to his personal share +in the great enterprise was upon the highest plane. We were fortunate in +having at the head of the War Department a man peculiarly sensitive to +community problems and with no small experience in their solution. +Through the centuries men had come to the belief that if their soldiers +were only valiant and disciplined in arms, it would not do to inquire +too curiously into their personal standards of conduct in other +matters--that a considerable wastage in military strength from +drunkenness and disease was inevitable. And as we all know, this wastage +has in the past sapped, not only the strength of the Army, but +afterwards the very life of the nation to which the soldier must sooner +or later return. + +The Secretary of War and his lieutenants, chief among whom in this field +should be placed the Chairman of the Committee on Training Camp +Activities, Raymond B. Fosdick, approached this problem neither in the +fatalistic spirit that what has always been must continue to be, nor in +a spirit of what, for want of a better term, I may call doctrinaire +idealism. They faced the fact that among the hundreds of thousands of +young men who were to be called to the colors, there would be many whose +ears would be deaf to any abstract appeal, and many others to whom such +an appeal might be made under normal conditions, but who in fatigue or +the let-down following the strain of conflict, could not be depended +upon to stand in the hour of temptation. As a result the whole field of +preventive measures was thoroughly studied and vigorous treatment was +applied. The Army regulations as to prophylaxis and the introduction of +intoxicants into camps were strictly and honestly enforced. The Army saw +to it that state and local laws as to liquor and prostitution were +properly carried out, and if these were lacking, they were promptly +enacted. The so-called Zone Law was adopted for the purpose of placing +the immediate vicinity of camps under Federal control. In some cases +where the community showed signs of regarding the Army policy in this +regard as a _beau geste_ and nothing more, it was made to realize that +while the War Department could not compel the community to mend its +ways, it could and would move the camp in twenty-four hours to a more +wholesome environment. I am proud to say that it was necessary in only a +very few instances to bring forward this aspect of the situation, but +when it was necessary the Department spoke in no uncertain tone. + +As a result of this general policy, in which the Navy shared, many a +wide-open town received a thorough house cleaning for the first time in +its career; in all between 120 and 140 red light districts were closed +and kept closed; and the underlying sordidness of many a smug +self-satisfied village was brought to light and remedied. + +The men who came to the camps tainted with venereal disease or broken by +drink or morphine--and the number of these was great enough to shock our +national complacency (and incidentally to explode the national +assumption that the country is primarily the abode of virtue as the +city is of vice)--these men were salvaged by the tens of thousands and +turned into useful self-respecting soldiers and citizens. + +The lesson of clean living was taught by the spoken word, by the moving +picture, by the printed page, by the doctor with a scientific +thoroughness and by the layman with a frankness and sometimes a +colloquialism which would for once have rendered Mrs. Grundy speechless. +As an instrument of virtue, the tract is, of course, of time-honored +usage, but the name of George Ade in the list of tract writers is a new +and significant one. + +More important than all this, however, in my judgment, was the +realization by the Army of the great truth that the soldier--or any one +else for that matter--goes astray in only the rarest instances from +innate depravity. What he seeks primarily is relaxation and amusement. +And so wholesome relaxation and amusement were placed at his disposal to +take the place of the unwholesome. The whole nation rose to help in this +work of substituting the clean for the unclean. It poured its money by +the hundreds of millions into the coffers of the great welfare +societies, the Red Cross, The Young Men's Christian Association, Knights +of Columbus, Jewish Welfare Board, and later in recognition of its work +abroad, the Salvation Army. All of these vied with one another in a +rivalry which was sometimes embarrassing in its intensity. The American +Library Association supplied books and other reading matter, and the War +Camp Community Service made sure that, to the towns and villages +surrounding it, a cantonment presented an opportunity for service rather +than for exploitation. Not the least important factor in the superb +showing which our troops made in France was the spirit with which the +men and women of these same towns inspired the men from the training +camps whom they took into their homes and their hearts. + +Within the fabric of the Army the chaplains were doing their share, as +were the athletic leaders and song leaders and dramatic coaches. They +were seconded by the officers of the line, most of whom, it should be +said, saw the military usefulness of the whole program from the first, +many of the experienced regulars having always done what they could with +the limited means at their command along the same lines. Other officers, +however, had to be shown--and were shown--the military importance of +the truth that the merry heart goes all the day, and the sad one tires +in a mile. + +The work of planning and coördination was in the hands of the civilian +Commission on Training Camp Activities, of which Mr. Fosdick has been +from the first the Chairman. The work of this Commission has been +characterized from the outset by a courage and resourcefulness for which +no praise can be too high. The theatre for example has not always been +looked upon by the American people as a moral agency, but the Commission +saw its place in the scheme of things and no fewer than thirty-seven +great playhouses have been erected at the camps and the audiences have +run literally into the millions. Boxing likewise was encouraged, even +though some of the contests which resulted were not of the most gentle. +Cantonment towns were persuaded to open the "Movies" on Sunday, the only +day on which most soldiers could leave the Camp--the outcries of the +_unco guid_ to the contrary notwithstanding. + +For more than a year the Commission and the welfare organizations were +the only organized forces in this general field, but since last summer +their work has been supplemented by the establishment within the Army +itself of a Morale Branch of the General Staff, in the formation of +which the Department was not too proud to take a leaf--perhaps one +should say a Blatt--from the Germans, who had already developed this +type of organization to a high degree, under the direct supervision of +General Ludendorff. + + * * * * * + +I have spoken of the work of prevention, of the more important work of +substitution, and I now come to the most important of all--the spirit of +confidence which extended from top to bottom of the huge organization +that the great mass of our men would go straight for the sake of going +straight. We all instinctively couple the two words, "officer" and +"gentleman." In the great Army which is now being disbanded, its work +having been so gloriously done, we find a new and enlarged conception, +that of the soldier and gentleman. It was, I am certain, the preliminary +assumption that an American soldier was also an American gentleman in +all the fundamentals of that much-abused term, which was the great +factor in keeping down the number of those who proved the contrary to so +negligibly small a total. + +A few figures from the official records will show what the result of +this all has been. In 1909, for instance, there were in the Army, in +round numbers, 5500 court-martial convictions of enlisted men, out of a +total of 75,000. For the fifteen months ending July 1, 1918, there were +11,500 convictions out of a total of 2,200,000 enlisted men, the +percentage in the twelve months of peace being 7.3 and in the fifteen +months of war, .53, about one-fourteenth as great. The significance of +these later figures cannot be appreciated without some knowledge of the +underlying circumstances. One case I remember was that of a man who got +drunk, spent his money and that of some fellow soldiers, and stayed +absent without leave to earn money enough to repay his fellow soldiers +and then returned to camp to take his medicine. What on the surface +appears to be the cowardly crime of desertion was, in several instances +of which I have personal knowledge, a misguided effort to get to the +front, through enlistment under another name in some branch of the +service which seemed to have an earlier prospect of getting over. In +France there were many cases of desertion, but nearly all were from the +rear to the front. The progressive success of the policy of keeping the +soldier from strong drink, by the way, stands out in the figures, which +show that early in the war one out of every twelve offenses charged +included drunkenness, but that this proportion dropped until the final +figures were less than one in each thirty offenses, this including +soldiers in France, where the soldier had to stand on his own feet +unprotected by prohibition laws. + +The welfare program was, from the nature of the case, most effective +among the men of the National Army, where it was possible to take the +soldiers in hand from the first. If we analyze the court-martial +records, we find that the proportion of court-martials was distinctly +lowest in this group. The records as of June 30, 1918, show that the +number of court-martials among the Regular Army was a little less than +one per cent, to be accurate 8/10 of one per cent; in the National Guard +the proportion was about 9/10 of one per cent; and in the National Army +it was less than 2/10 of one per cent, the exact figure being .143 per +cent, one-fiftieth of the percentage ten years ago. + +Another check on the efficiency of the program is found in the records +as to venereal disease in the Surgeon General's Office. It is hard to +get comparative figures because of constantly changing conditions, but +it has been shown beyond all doubt that the health conditions in the +Army have been far, far better than in the community at large. While the +latter are not so bad as the alarmists have implied, they are serious +enough in all conscience, when in no fewer than seventeen of the states, +sixty or more of every thousand men who appeared at the mobilization +camps were found to be infected. Taking a typical month before the +signing of the armistice, we find that the proportion of cases coming to +the camps from the civil community was fifteen times as great as the +proportion among our soldiers in France, even including the soldiers in +the port towns, where most of our difficulties there were found. The +comparison with the records of the cantonments in this country is even +more striking. + + * * * * * + +As to the purely religious appeal and its influence on the men it is +hard to speak with any degree of certainty. A visiting British general +in Washington, shortly after our entry into the war, was asked as to +conditions in England, and is reported to have replied, "Upon my soul, +if you ask me, I should say that with us the dear old Church has rather +missed the bus." In this country the organized religious forces have by +no means missed the bus, but if we are honest with ourselves we must +face the fact that since the last great national test, the Civil War, +other appeals to higher standards of conduct have both actually and +relatively been tremendously strengthened, and our religious leaders +must address themselves, in the light of experience during these past +two years, to a clearer understanding of these other forces and to a +closer coöperation with them. We cannot to-day close our eyes to the +truth that many of our finest men played their splendid parts quite +untouched by a religious motive or appeal--or at least doctrinal appeal; +one hesitates to call their attitude a non-religious one. It must always +be remembered, however, that their standards, no matter how unconscious +they may have been of the fact, were fundamentally based upon the +development of a Christian civilization. + +If thus far I may have seemed to measure soldier conduct by two +standards only, by his relation to drink and to women, it is because the +results of the policy of the Army in these two matters are measurable, +the records are outstanding. The Army and its experience however would +furnish but a poor guide to the Churches and the other civilian forces +for righteousness if its lessons were limited to the negative virtues, +important as they are, of sobriety and continence. + +The real contribution, what we have learned as to the positive virtues, +is harder to describe and impossible to measure, but the lessons are +worth looking for and may be learned from the letters and from the lips +of our men. Perhaps I can best indicate what the men themselves regard +as vital by telling the experience of a friend who started one of the +customary practical talks before an audience of our men behind the lines +in France. His homily didn't seem to be "getting across" and he was +inspired to ascertain just what to their minds were the most serious +offenses. He asked each man to write down what he regarded as the three +very worst faults against which a soldier should be on his guard. When +the answers were collected, one word appeared on practically every slip +of paper, _cowardice_; the second was not so nearly unanimous, but +appears on a strong majority of the papers, _selfishness_; and the third +was evidently _conceitedness_, though the defect was worded in +different ways, as _big head_, _crust_, and the like. + +In other words, the virtues which the soldier most admires and regarding +which he had evidently learned the most valuable lessons, are courage, +unselfishness or coöperativeness, and modesty. + +The record of our soldiers has proved beyond a doubt that once you get +men into groups with a common and a worth-while purpose, courage--both +the reckless courage that comes by instinct and that higher type, the +courage of the man who recognizes his danger--can no longer be assumed +to be a rare virtue. It is a very common virtue. Cowardice is infinitely +rarer. The citations and the casualty records, for instance, have +completely rehabilitated the Jew as a fighting man, and the faithful +need no longer go back to Josephus for their war legends. + +Not all the courage and fortitude was shown on the field of battle. We +must not forget that last fall we suffered from by far the most serious +epidemic in the history of America, and, in the dark days in our +training camps, opportunities were offered, and gladly accepted, for a +display of heroism and devotion of the highest type. + +In the realm of fortitude, if not of physical courage, the war certainly +tapped new sources of determination and provided a kind of stimulus +which would keep a man to whom no personal glory or conspicuousness +could possibly come, some poor devil sentenced to a swivel chair, +laboring in that same chair day and night for the purpose of making some +single improvement in nut or bolt, or perhaps filing card. Given the +impetus of a great common purpose, our possibilities for industry are +limitless. + +One thing that mankind should have learned long since is that, broadly +speaking, selfishness as a guiding motive is essentially negative--the +absence of something better--the man is a rare exception who does not +lose himself and his self-interest in the conception or the ambition of +the group, the squad or battalion or regiment, the division, the army or +the nation. An interesting side-light upon this is the fact that +two-thirds of the men who get into trouble in the Army, or at any rate +who get into sufficiently serious trouble to land them in Fort +Leavenworth, are markedly of the ego-centric type; in other words, are +men for whom the group cannot overcome the individual bias. + +That our soldiers as a whole possess the virtue of modesty, though it is +often overlaid by a veneer of innocent swagger, is beyond dispute, as +any one who has had to do with them can testify. And underlying +and inspiring their whole conduct have been the qualities of +whole-souledness and determination and an indomitable cheerfulness. + + * * * * * + +We must learn the lessons which the soldiers have to teach us in the +large just as we must grasp their accomplishments in the large. There is +a morning after for nations as well as for individuals, and we seem just +now to be in danger of losing our conception of the greatness of the +enterprise, and its essential soundness, through the intrusion of the +instances, relatively very few, where things did not go right; where +human nature did not reach the heights, or having reached them, failed +to remain upon them. + +It has, I think, been definitely proved that the mixing up of the +so-called welfare work with the special function of the clergymen or +other religious adviser, in order that the latter may be made more +palatable to the soldier, has an effect exactly the reverse of what was +intended. The policy of interpolating a prayer meeting, or a +heart-to-heart talk, between the third and fourth reels of the moving +picture play, and I grieve to say that such a policy was actually +followed for a while, is of course a fantastic example, but it shows +exactly how we ought not to do it. + +The soldiers are peculiarly sensitive to any feeling that what is done +for them is done for some other purpose than the ostensible one, +entirely apart from how worthy such other purpose may be. Let me quote +from a letter written by an officer of the Army who had been visiting a +number of camps: + +"The Camp Library to my mind fulfills one of the most vital needs of the +camp. It is a place where our men can get relaxation and mental +stimulus, and where they can feel at ease without the 'God-bless-you' +atmosphere of the other welfare organizations."... "It is the one place +in camp where you can go and have a chance to meditate or read in peace +and quiet without a piano jangling in your ears or the imminent +possibility of a prayer meeting." + +The chaplain or the lay religious worker to whom a man instinctively +turned at the moment when he needed spiritual help was the one whom he +had learned to respect for courage and devotion and dignity, the man who +had helped to bury his dead friend, to comfort and amuse his wounded +friend, and to advise his misguided friend in the guard-house; not the +one whose ill-timed ministrations he had learned to avoid. I understand +that the story of the chaplain who entirely forgot that he was to appear +at a review for the purpose of receiving a medal and delayed the entire +proceedings while he was sought for and found in his customary post in +the connecting trench, is absolutely authentic. + +The man who could forget his denomination in his devotion to the great +common mission was the man whom the soldier learned to love and to trust +and who could do the most in the day of battle. The most popular tales +among the chaplains are the tales of unorthodoxy: The Catholic priest +who baptized a group of his men before action in a shell hole with water +which was not only unblessed, but I fear unsanitary, and who simply +referred to Philip and the Eunuch when reproved; the Methodist and +Baptist, and I think the Episcopalian, who in the absence of their +Presbyterian colleague, solemnly and quite illegally received a +youngster into the Presbyterian fold before he went overseas, and +confessed the next morning to the Presbyterian Board; the Wesleyan +chaplain in the British Army who carried a crucifix to comfort the dying +Catholics on the battlefield when no priest of their faith was near, and +who administered the last rites to them as best he could. There are +hundreds of such stories. + +The appeal of any denomination as such, or of the Y, or the +corresponding societies of other faiths, as such, was always mistaken. +It was the united appeal of all the doers of good deeds which counted. +If we never knew before, we know now the truth of the fable of the +bundle of fagots. Personally, I believe the united drive for welfare +work last fall, during which Protestant, Catholic and Jew, and men of no +formal religion whatever, appealed from the same platform for the same +great purpose, was an event of the greatest importance in our nation, +and it will go ill with us if we forget the lesson that it has to teach. + +The appeal must be not only disinterested, but it must be simple and +direct. This, and the careful selection of its personnel, had much, if +not most, to do with the extraordinary success of the Salvation Army. +There are times in a soldier's life when the sewing on of a button at +some vital spot will do more to "get" him than anything else in the +world. + +Out of this spirit of general helpfulness, there were developed at +almost every point the most beautiful and sympathetic adjustments to +immediate conditions. For example, take the plan of showing moving +pictures upon the ceilings of hospital wards, so that the very ill may +enjoy them without the strain even of raising their heads. This small +piece of thoughtfulness to me represents the standard of thinking a +problem through which we will have to maintain if we are to hold what we +have gained, and what we have gained includes, or should include, a +realization that active and willing loving-kindness furnishes the +keenest of all pleasures. + + * * * * * + +Thus far I have spoken mainly of the work of preparation in the United +States. Overseas our soldiers and their officers found new conditions +and were forced to make new adjustments. We no longer could control the +laws and ordinances, and we found different standards of conduct--not +necessarily lower standards, but different standards. We could no longer +enforce prohibition for example, but we did maintain a high average of +temperance. We showed our allies, some of whom I may say were honestly +sceptical on the subject, that with our soldiers continence was the +rule, and not the exception. When I was in France last year, I asked +those who were in a position to know upon this point and was told that, +comparatively speaking, very, very few of our men lowered in France the +standards of conduct which they held when they came into the Army, that +many more greatly improved those standards, either because of the +lessons they had learned in our training camps, or because of the +wholesome companionship of the women workers with whom they were daily +brought in contact, or because, and this was probably the most potent +factor of all, they were so desperately keen to get into the fighting +line that they were taking no chances of being put out of commission +beforehand. Their morality was the morality of the team in training for +the big game, and it kept tens of thousands of boys straight. Indeed, +until November 11, disciplinary problems may be said to have been +practically non-existent among combat troops and almost negligible among +the others. After the armistice was signed, there was a let-down, this +being after all a very human body of young men, and the first remedy +tried by some of the old-time regulars did not help a bit. This was to +"give 'em plenty of drill and make 'em so tired they won't have energy +to get into mischief," but as one returning artillery officer pointed +out to me, when a battery a month before has fired 50,000 rounds of +high-explosive at the Boche, and worked its guns over craters and +through thickets, a drill with dummy ammunition on a parade ground is +almost a justification for mutiny. Wiser counsel soon prevailed and the +welfare work, which had slumped with the rest, was again brought up to +concert pitch. It was for the first time in France, properly coördinated +under Army control. The misfits and the workers who had worn themselves +out were returned to this country and their places taken by fresh blood. +I remember in this connection a paragraph tucked in the middle of the +uncompromising officialdom of the daily departmental cable: "Send over +plenty of welfare workers and remember the best men you can send are the +women." + +Let me take this chance to say a word about the criticisms we have been +hearing of this welfare work abroad. In the first place, the success of +the work in this country among the men in training set up an expectation +which it was humanly impossible to meet under the conditions overseas; +in other words, the men who went over assumed standards as to the +minimum amount of attention which it was their right to expect, the like +of which had never been dreamed in the history of mankind. As a matter +of fact, and taken as a whole, the treatment which they received was +admirable and the comparatively few who now doubt the truth of this +statement will come to realize it as time goes on. They will see that +the misfits, the over-wrought, stood out in their minds like men out of +alignment at parade, that they simply did not notice the thousands of +men and women whose work for them was all that their own mothers could +have asked. + +The following official cablegram records the state of educational, +recreation and welfare work at the end of April, 1919. + +"Educational activities: Roughly there are 209,000 students embraced in +this scheme. Ten thousand are at A.E.F. University at Beaune, some 7,000 +are attending French universities. 3,000 attending British. There are +roughly 130,000 men at Post Schools, which correspond to our elementary +schools in United States. 55,000 are attending the Divisional +Educational Schools, which correspond to our High schools. In addition +there are approximately 58,000 men in specialized vocational schools +where they have full shop facilities of A.E.F. + +"Athletic activities: Athletic activities increasing daily in scope and +popularity. Figures for February show 6,500,000 individual participants +in games. In addition to mass athletics, unit championships are being +played in football, basketball, soccer, boxing, tennis, swimming, tug of +war, golf, track and field. + +"Entertainment activities: Reports of entertainment officers show +monthly attendance for A.E.F. of between eight and ten million. Moving +pictures, professional talent from United States and particularly +soldier shows being utilized in all parts of army and have done much to +take care of leisure hours of troops. Horse shows have been held in +nearly every division of A.E.F. and have proved very popular. Amount of +all this work now being carried on is little short of stupendous." + +The following paragraphs from a personal letter are particularly +significant as coming from an officer of the regular army, who when he +was in command of one of the cantonments in the United States was +genuinely alarmed lest the War Department had not lost its sense of +proportion, and was creating parlor ornaments instead of fighting men: + +"I served in the Army of Occupation in the Philippines and in China +after the Boxer campaign, and I want to tell you that the discipline and +_ésprit de corps_ of these troops in Germany is incomparably better than +anything I saw there. + +"I think nothing has so contributed to this result as the welfare work +and the educational work undertaken. We have every reason to be proud of +the fact that we had people in command of the army who had the vision to +see what result this work would bring. + +"I took command of the --th Division in the Army of Occupation in +December, and up until the present time I never worked with a happier or +more contented lot of men. Of course they all want to go home, and we +wouldn't have much use for them if they didn't, but an intensified +military course of training in the morning, schools and athletics in the +afternoon, and study and entertainment in the evening have made their +days so full that they have been perfectly contented to stay until their +boat comes in June. + +"This has been the experience of all the divisions up here in Germany, +and their enthusiasm, I fear, when they get home, may be taken for +pro-Germanism." + + * * * * * + +The War Department has learned so much in this great laboratory +experiment in human conduct that the impious wish sometimes arises in +one's mind that we might promptly try it all over again for the chance +of profiting by our mistakes. Thank God we can't do that, but in our +daily contact with these same men restored to their communities we can +to a certain degree carry on the work, and in so doing we can learn much +from the successes and failures of the Army. + +In planning for the immediate future, there are some things which we +mustn't forget. In the first place, we mustn't expect these young men +(or any humans for that matter) to be capable of remaining at concert +pitch indefinitely. + +For a while, in dealing with the soldier who has returned from overseas, +real ingenuity will be required to make much impression upon his mind. +Not only will ordinary life seem tame but, frankly, he is likely to have +been overhandled and overwelfared. If, however, we have erred in this +regard, it has been on the right side. + +May I venture still another suggestion, and that is to be careful and +considerate of the soldier who, despite his earnest desire, failed to +get across, and for the matter of that, of the young man who didn't get +into the Army at all. The morale of these two groups will need our +particular care. + +In closing, however, we should not end upon a note of warning, but +rather upon one of exultation; for the war has taught us, if it has +taught nothing else, that, given a great cause and a cross-section of +our heterogeneous American population, the resulting revelation of the +power of human endurance, human courage and human accomplishment comes +pretty near to proving objectively the divinity of man. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: An address delivered at the one hundredth anniversary of +the General Theological Seminary, New York, April 30, 1919.] + + + + +THE WAR AS A PRACTICAL TEST OF AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP[2] + + +It is a difficult task to attempt to define the American scholar of +to-day. If any of you doubt it, let him try it as I have tried. +Scholarship, like many another broad term, has no sharply marked edges. +It is hard to define anything that lacks definiteness; and, after all, +the task is relatively profitless, because we all of us recognize what +is at the center of the concept. I think we all recognize that the +scholar is an expert in some particular field or fields; but he is more +than the expert as such, in that he knows enough of other matters to see +his particular specialty in its relation to things in general. He must, +to this degree at least, be a philosopher. This very general conception +of scholarship is fairly constant, but the fields which the conception +includes are broadening day by day and almost hour by hour. We cannot +to-day limit scholarship to the polite branches which were all that it +embodied when this Society was founded or even when this Chapter was +established. The scholar of the old-fashioned type must now accept as +his fellow the man who has helped to flatten the trajectory of the +16-inch shell, or to control the birth rate of the cootie. Later on I +shall suggest one other element which, in the light of the test which +American scholarship has undergone in the past two years, it seems to me +should now be included in our idea of the typical American scholar. + +We Americans are proud of being called a nation of inventors; and most +of us have made, or almost made, private discoveries of an inventional +nature which, for some reason, have never come to fruition. The +scientific boards in Washington during the war received more than sixty +thousand suggestions in some mechanical field; and I am told by those +who ought to know that of all these not more than five of those coming +from untrained minds were of any practical value. Even from the trained +minds there came, I am told, no fundamental discovery in science as a +direct result of the war conditions. Suggestions of improvements in +detail and valuable suggestions there were in plenty, new applications +of known principles, but application of a fundamentally new idea, no. +That is only to say what we already know, that discovery is not made to +order. In each case the idea had already been born in the mind of some +intellectual pioneer and worked out by him, and some man who had the +idea in the front of his mind was at hand to apply it to the new +condition. And that means, I think, that if we met the test, we met it +with our scholars. + +When the test came, certain fields of scholarship naturally afforded a +better chance for immediate service than others. The chemist, for +example, had a better chance a thousand-fold than the archæologist. It +is extraordinary, however, how many of the gifts which burned bright on +the national altar came from men with some out-of-the-way specialty. +Take archæology itself, if you will. The best trench helmet developed +during the war was designed by the expert in armor from our own academic +fellowship. I am told that a very important element in the length of +time which it took to control the submarine menace was the fact that +when war broke out the science of oceanography was almost wholly in the +hands of the Germans. When the world's supply of cocoanut husks was +taken up for gas masks and we still needed charcoal, we had to turn for +additional sources to the tropical botanist, who might have been +expected to remain reasonably undisturbed. It remained for a scholar in +perhaps the purest branch of pure science, astronomy, to recognize the +well known fact that it is the shape of the tail of any and every moving +object, motor car or boat or what you will, and not the shape of the +head, which is the factor of chief importance in design, and to apply +this recognition to artillery problems. The re-designing of our +artillery shells under the direction of this astronomer added miles to +their range. Another astronomer applied his experience in studying the +movement of comets to solving certain problems of long-range artillery +fire where the projectile in its flight rises into the circumambient +ether. + +In proving the case for the American scholar, as I think we can prove +it, we should not be beguiled into the pleasant task of recording the +deeds of scholars and gentlemen when the deeds were those of the gallant +gentleman rather than of the scholar _per se_. We have one here in our +own academic family whose lieutenant's bars I should be as proud to wear +as the stars of any of our generals. Nor need we, I think, cite the +instances where the rigorous training of the scholar clearly laid the +foundation for great accomplishment in some general field of +administration. The man whom we can thank perhaps more than any other +for the brilliant conduct of our war finance was seventeen years ago +editor-in-chief of the _Columbia Law Review_. We may well turn with +pride, but we don't need him to prove our point, to the scholar of this +university, formerly president of this Chapter, who, from his own +talents and experience and his alert sense of scholarship in others, has +earned the place which he now holds as educational director of the +largest university in the world, the A.E.F. University at Beaune. + + * * * * * + +Our case rests, as I say, upon the direct applications of scholarship, +and not only upon their quality, but on their range. A single division +of the National Research Council, in its report for 1918, showed work of +national significance by the scholars in physics, mathematics, and +allied fields toward the solution of no fewer than sixty-eight +different problems, every one of which needed for its solution men with +training and knowledge and vision. At the outset, who among us had the +slightest conception of the complexity of the adaptations to warfare of +what was known to modern scholarship? We knew that the war was mounting +into the air, but who had any realization of the adjustments which this +involved? Fifteen fundamental problems based on pure physics promptly +arose with reference to instruments for airplane operation. For example, +at night and in the clouds, the aviator must have before his eyes a dial +which will indicate the slightest deviation from his course. Seven +problems had to do with airplane photography. As the art of camouflage +advanced, for instance, color filters had to be devised for its +detection from above. Seven additional problems had to do with factors +of construction and maintenance, as fuel efficiency. Nine others +affected ballooning; and the balloon, as the war developed, came to be +of greater and greater importance. Eleven studies were in signalling: +one, for example, a device for secret daylight signalling, with a range +of five miles or more. And please remember that all these were the task +of one branch of one organization within the field of pure science. By +common consent, the dullest branch of physics was held to be acoustics, +but since 1914 the whole question of sound-ranging has been in the hands +of experts in acoustics. A device developed by American physicists gave +our men nineteen seconds in which to take cover from cannon fired four +miles away. The most brilliant work in this field was that of a former +student of the Columbia School of Mines. + +If I were to pick out one field in which the scholarly attitude has been +most brilliantly rewarded, it is that of medicine. If our army surgeons +and sanitarians had been confined to the practical family doctors, who +cannot be bothered with all this new-fangled stuff, our men would have +died like flies from disease, as they did in the Spanish-American War. +It was the laboratory man, the theorist, the highbrow if you like, who +made our health record a matter of national pride and congratulation. It +was the knowledge of a scholar, coupled with his instinctive +understanding of the human heart--neither could have accomplished the +purpose alone--which sent hundreds of shell-shocks, as they came to be +called (people used to call the condition by an uglier, if not a +shorter, term) back into the lines with self-respect and nerve renewed. + +To turn to another field, it was a real scholar, even if he were also a +dean, who, in spite of the best efforts of his practical associates to +deter him, brought order out of chaos in the most important of our war +boards through the collection and skillful presentation of statistical +data. + +In many cases it was the scholar whom we must thank for the pointing out +of the obvious. The early drafts rejected thousands of excellent +potential soldiers because our existing height regulations were drawn +for men of the northern European races; and the minimum height limit was +well within the normal variation of the men of southern European +ancestry, which has been so large an element in our recent immigration. +Similarly, men of science have pointed out that the length of the +marching step depends not alone on the length of the legs, but even more +on the width of the hips, a simple fact which is of real military +significance. The scholars in the Forest Products laboratories knew how +to make boxes that would not break and spill their contents on the +wharves at Hoboken or St. Nazaire, and, equally important, they knew +how to educate the quartermasters to use them. + +The fact that in many fields we reached the limits of available +man-power meant a wonderful stimulation to the study of certain problems +affecting human welfare. Take for example the physiological aspects of +industrial fatigue. In this field an excellent theoretical start had +been made before the war, but the appeal was limited to those interested +in the individual worker. With the war, however, and the shortage of +labor, came a new and, I fear, a more potent appeal--the interest in the +product and its prompt production. The worker who collapsed could not be +replaced. Long hours or unsanitary surroundings meant spoiled material +and broken-down machinery and resultant delay. And when there was a +scholar at hand to show why this was so, you may be sure he had his day +in court. + +The work of the scholar has not wholly been in getting things done. +Perhaps an equally important side was in keeping impossible or +unprofitable things from being attempted. When time was of the very +essence of the whole program, the man who could say "No" and prove the +validity of his objection, performed a positive work of great value. +One of our associates at Columbia had a leading share in devising tests +for candidates for the flying school, which, by rejecting the unfit at +the outset, saved many lives from the time of their adoption and many, +many thousands of dollars; for the training of a flyer who cannot be +used when the time comes is a very costly piece of national extravagance +in both money and men. + +Our scholars did not confine their activities to the battle of +Washington. Not only as engineers and doctors, but as geologists and +geographers, as meteorologists and sanitarians, they went with the +troops to the front, and their counsel as to actual military operations +was welcomed and followed. One of them, a bachelor and doctor of this +University, died in the service in France. The scholar, like the +soldier, stood ready to step forward to fill the gap in the ranks as he +saw it, regardless of whether something more dignified might be found +for him to do. Our own Barnard, Professor of Education, took what he was +pleased to call his vacation in applying his scholarship to organizing +an educational program for the wounded men in our hospitals, as a +therapeutic measure. Being a scholar and not merely an expert, he saw +the broad human aspect of his specialty; that the first thing to do with +the man who is blinded, or otherwise maimed, is to make him realize that +it is worth while to get well; that he can have a life which is worth +living; that if his old job is no longer possible, there are others for +which he can be trained. One of America's most distinguished +philosophical chemists settled down to the humble but very essential +problem of making mixed flours rise and bake with a crust--and solved +it. The war services of a past President of this Chapter, now, alas, no +longer with us, and those of our present President have been as useful +as they have been inconspicuous. + +The need for the scholar was not only qualitative, but quantitative. But +for the general distribution of chemical knowledge in France and +England, and the presence of men capable of promptly applying that +knowledge to combat the gas attacks launched by the Germans, the war +would have been lost before we could possibly have rendered the +slightest assistance; and on our side of the Atlantic when the armistice +was signed, there were two thousand trained chemists engaged in the +problems of gas warfare alone. Our country, in a word, needed not only +to have some men with the requisite training, but men enough to meet +simultaneously many needs in many fields, and these men were drawn in +large measure from our academic faculties. While one must not press the +identity between the scholar and the professor too hard--for a number of +reasons--the fact remains that the teaching profession provided the main +reservoir from which the country drew. One of my friends in the Chemical +Warfare Service has summarized the relation between the academic scholar +and that branch of the army activity. Both chiefs of the Chemical +Service Station were college professors, one of them a member of this +Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Of the fourteen heads of the Research +Division, eight were college professors. It was the college professors +who made fundamental improvements in gas masks on the one hand, and who +devised new gases to test the German masks on the other. + + * * * * * + +As a nation, we did not realize at the outset, as Germany did, the +importance of the man who knows, and of knowing who he is and where he +is; and here, perhaps, lay our most fundamental unpreparedness. What +this cost us may be judged from a single instance. A code message from +Germany directing the dismantling of the German ships lying in our ports +was intercepted. If we had known that there was a professor of English +in the University of Chicago who, in the pursuit of his medieval +researches, had developed the power of reading ciphers almost at sight, +that cable from Germany could have been promptly deciphered, we could +have forestalled the sabotage, and something like six months in the use +of these ships for the transport of our troops and munitions could have +been gained. + +The job of getting the man who knew into the right niche was not an easy +one. The scholars could not all be spared; for, after all, education and +research are essential industries, and, fortunately for our institutions +of learning, for our reviews and scientific agencies, and fortunately +for the country as a whole, all of our scholars did not rush immediately +into government work. The less thrilling task of keeping the lamps +burning in our lighthouses was never more important than during the +stormy days which we have just gone through. Furthermore, the scholar is +a modest person, though he has his human vanities, as we all know who +have seen our colleagues in uniform; but usually some one had to know +about him and invite him to his place, a very sharp contrast to the +business men and lawyers who came down to Washington by the trainload to +impress us with their capacity to do any job which involved a commission +of properly high degree. + +In general, I should say that the individuals in the universities met +the test better than the institutions themselves. The latter did not, it +seems to me, as institutions, grasp the situation. Very few studied the +question of the assignment of their specialists as a problem in +conservation as well as in publicity; and as far as the use of their +facilities in the training of soldiers and sailors is concerned, the War +Department and the Navy Department had literally to teach them how to +meet the war conditions. Such help as came from organized bodies of +scholars came rather from the learned societies than from the academic +groups. + +Then there was a further difficulty, particularly among the younger men, +though not wholly among them. The expert's job, and hence inclusively +the scholar's job, is relatively safe so far as the immediate risk of +death is concerned, though not the risk of shortening life through +overwork. One Columbia man, well over the draft age, told me frankly +that he would gladly give up an important public office he held for the +privilege of fighting with his hands, but he could not be tempted by an +opportunity to fight with his head. Through this same impulse many and +many a man attempted to conceal his special knowledge in order that he +might fight in the line. The Army Committee on Classification of +Personnel, which was in itself a beautiful example of scholarship in +practical application, was able, however, in most instances to pluck out +the expert from the line and set him, whether he was willing or not, at +the task for which he was particularly adapted and particularly needed. + + * * * * * + +What, from the point of view of the non-scholar, can be said as to the +general usefulness of the men and women (for the women did their share) +who came forward or were brought forward to take this trial by fire on +behalf of American scholarship? First of all, the scholar must be a real +scholar; he must have the natural ability and the long and rigorous +training necessary for accurate observation, and observation of the kind +which, if I may be forgiven a most unscholarly metaphor, includes the +ability to distinguish the blue chips from the white; his deductions +must be relentless, and his inductions must be luminous. That is asking +a good deal, and it would be enough if his dealings were to be with +other scholars or with scholars in the making. The papers of a leisurely +recluse can be dug out by others from the even more deliberately +published proceedings of learned societies, even as the author has dug +out those of his predecessors, and ultimately the practical application +of his discoveries will be made. In national emergency, however, this +process will not suffice. The scholar must descend from his tower; he +must, if he is to serve effectively, learn to think to order and to do +it rapidly, to deal with all sorts and conditions of men; he must bear +with their amazing ignorances and profit by their equally amazing +knowledge of things of which he is ignorant. He must know the art of +team play. The war has brought out a new type of scholarship, or at any +rate has developed it to such an extent that its implications are new, +and that is the unselfish coöperation of experts to meet a given and +usually an immediately pressing need. The development of the Liberty +motor furnishes a good example of the results of such coöperative +effort. It seems to me that the most important single lesson which our +scholars can learn from the experience of the two past years is the +importance of this team play in scholarship, and not only team play with +other scholars, but team play with those who have the equally valuable +and perhaps even rarer gift of getting things done, who perhaps deserve +the title of scholars in the control of time and space. The scholars who +made good were those who had had not only the training and temperament +for research, but the training and temperament for working with other +people. The scholarship of the man who from self-centeredness or from a +mistaken absorption in his specialty lacked the art of dealing with his +fellow men was likely to prove a sterile scholarship, and in most cases +a useless scholarship in the day of national need. + +One of the most dramatic things about the war was the speeding up of +supply and transport under the strong hand of the man who had brought +the Panama Canal to completion. General Goethals was no administrative +theorist. He was willing to try anything and anybody once, but he was +prompt in rejecting what did not promptly accomplish his purpose. An +engineer of General Goethals' distinction can be regarded as a scholar +in his particular field; but the point I want to make is that during his +service as Quartermaster-General, when officers of the regular army and +over-night majors, as they were called, presidents of manufacturing +plants, bankers and lawyers, were passing in what seemed to be an almost +unbroken procession through his office, he retained just two men in his +inner circle from first to last, and both were academic persons. Herbert +Hoover surrounded himself with scholars, entomologists, statisticians +and public health men. He did not always use them for their specialties, +but he evidently liked the type. The great welfare societies did the +same, and the list of academic men whom they used makes an impressive +total. + +These instances are typical of a very general success among scholars in +coöperating effectively and helpfully with eminently practical men. This +may be because the scholar has been trained in a form of competition +which the so-called practical man lacked. He is used to having his work +wiped out by some discovery of a rival, and having to begin afresh. He +is used to a checking of his work by his fellows which, if of a +different nature, is no less relentless than the war-time check in the +toll of human lives. The man of high reputation in business often failed +because he had learned to measure success and his own competence only in +terms of dividends, and in the new test he found his measuring-rod worse +than useless. + +Our scholars of the coöperative type not only pursued their researches, +but they got their military associates into the habit of thinking in +terms of scholarship. One of their most useful accomplishments, +initiated by a Doctor of Philosophy of this University, was the +organization of Thursday evening conferences for the discussion of the +new scientific and technical problems facing the Army and Navy. This +furnished a nucleus for the exchange of ideas between the different +research groups, both here and abroad; for scholarship was mobilized and +utilized in France, England, and Italy, as well as here, and our Allies +laid their scientific discoveries before us with the greatest loyalty. +At these conferences their reports were discussed and digested and +applied, instead of being pigeon-holed at the War College, as I fear +might have been otherwise the case. It was as a result of one of these +conferences that a member of this Chapter, acting on a hint which came +from a French report, was largely instrumental in developing a method of +submarine detection through sound-waves of a particular type, which, +though it came too late to be of service in the war, may serve in peace +to relieve the greatest terror of the mariner, the danger of collision +in darkness or fog with sister vessel or iceberg or derelict. A potent +factor in breaking down the barriers and delays of departmental +jealousies and bureaucratic tradition all along the line was the +free-masonry of the company of scholars in Washington. + +It must not be forgotten that our scholar in war worked under two +powerful stimuli, neither of them operative under ordinary conditions. +Although he was out of his accustomed setting, working with strange +people and at strange tasks, nevertheless the realization of the +national need and the joy of feeling an identification with the forces +facing the adversary tended to produce that fine frenzy which enables a +man to do better than he knows how. Then, for the first time in history, +the scholar had unlimited funds. It is an interesting subject for +speculation as to how he can ever go back to the limits of academic +appropriations. It is to be feared that in many cases he will not, but +will turn to industrial enterprises instead. If, however, there was an +unlimited supply of funds, there was a corresponding deficiency in time, +and the scholar who could not speed up to meet the new conditions had +little chance to make his mark. The men who failed in war because they +could not grasp the significance of the time factor may, however, still +be eminently useful in peace. On the other hand, the training which some +of our scholars received in meeting another war-time condition is likely +to have an important influence upon the relation of scholarship to +industry. Many a scholar found for the first time that to meet a given +condition a beautiful laboratory solution may be no solution at all, +that the answer, to be effective, must meet the peculiar condition of +quantity production. + +The merit of the Liberty engine, of which I have already spoken, lies +not alone in the excellence of its design, admirable as that is, but in +the fact that it is so constructed that we could produce fifteen hundred +of them in a single week. Or, to take another example, in 1914 we made +all together eighteen hundred field glasses in this country. Last +winter, thanks to the coöperation of the scholars in the chemistry of +glass and in the field of optics on the one hand, and of the experts in +quantity production on the other, we were making thirty-five hundred +pairs of field glasses each week. There are many other adaptations of +scholarship to industry that are awaiting similar practical solutions. +One of our most distinguished scholars in physics has said publicly that +the day is past when one can defend any distinction between pure and +applied science. One might as well try to distinguish between pure and +applied virtue. + +I said at the outset that I would venture later on an enlargement of the +conception of the American scholar, in the light of what the past two +years have made so clear. The scholar himself as well as those of us who +are not scholars, needs, I think, to get a somewhat broader conception +of the term; to develop it from its present popular connotation so that +the attributes which come to one's mind will no longer be the static and +selfish, but rather the dynamic and social. Emerson, in his essay on the +American Scholar, seems to have some prophetic glimpse of this broader +conception. He says, for example, that "action is with the scholar +subordinate, but it is essential; that without it, he is not yet man; +that the true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as +a loss of power"; and elsewhere, "that a great soul will be strong to +live, as well as strong to think." The old idea of the scholar was the +recluse, the individual; the new, it seems to me, should be one of a +company of builders, each bringing to the common task, for the general +welfare, his training and craft, his knowledge and ideas, to combine +them with the gifts which his fellows are bringing. + + * * * * * + +Thus far almost all my modern instances have been taken from the realms +of natural science. I need not remind you, however, that although +science has tremendously broadened the range of scholarship, +nevertheless the scholarship which is a practical asset is not and never +will be limited to natural science. The record of the past two years has +many an example of the essentially important work of scholars in other +fields. The records are not so clear-cut, the results are perhaps more +often negative; but the work was done and it counted. In the field of +public information our American scholars in the political sciences did +excellent work under the direction of a Doctor of Philosophy of this +University, and their record for fairness and sanity makes an enviable +contrast with the pathetic propaganda of the German intellectuals. +Similarly, the work of our Columbia scholars of the Legislative Drafting +Bureau proved of great value in formulating and, perhaps more important, +in discouraging legislation. + +In general, however, I think we ought to face the fact squarely that our +scholarship in man's relations with his fellow men, in his understanding +of himself and his fellows as contrasted with his mastery of physical +things, cannot claim so clear-cut a decision. Even in science we should +not set too great store by ourselves. Professor, late Colonel, Millikan +writes: "The contribution of the United States in research and +development lines was less, far less in proportion to our resources and +population, than that of England or France, and this in spite of the far +heavier strain under which they were laboring." And yet, with us, +science was better mobilized, better equipped, and can make a better +showing than the humanities. Part of this can be readily explained by +the statement that preparation for war is after all engineering on a +huge scale. But we must not prove too much if we are to profit by the +lesson. For example, the war found us utterly unprepared in +foreign-language knowledge; and we are still unprepared. How many real +Americans, I don't mean recent immigrants, but men and women with our +traditions and our point of view, can speak Russian? How many can speak +the languages of the Near East or Far East? + +Excellent work has been done by individual philosophers, economists, and +sociologists in labor questions, in welfare work, on the war-time trade +and industrial boards; but as a whole our scholars in these fields did +not dominate the situation as did the men of science in theirs. Of +course, their task was infinitely harder. For one thing, though we may +be ready to confess our ignorance of calculus or colloidal chemistry or +thermo-dynamics, we all believe in the validity of our off-hand +judgments in politics and morals, and indeed in all the springs of human +conduct. Yet when all allowances are made, the fact remains that there +is a scholarship in these matters and we have American scholars in them, +but that with distinguished exceptions these professionals permitted the +man in the street or the man in the editor's chair, or in Congress, or +in the Cabinet, to proclaim his amateur pronouncement and to get away +with it. Indeed, I will go further and say that not a few who know or +ought to know that it is not necessary to be intolerant in order to be +patriotic seemed to set their knowledge upon this point at one side. In +war time it is a matter for the scholar's judgment and conscience to +decide whether it is wise to attempt a leadership which at the moment +will be misunderstood and probably ineffective, possibly even dangerous, +because of the reaction, to the cause he has at heart; or to bide his +time in silence, awaiting a more suitable time to be heard. But I submit +that he is sinning against the light when he joins in the hue and cry of +the untrained and the half-trained. The war has given the natural +scientist his chance, and he has profited thereby. In the years to come +the test will, I think, shift to the scholars in the human sciences. The +crises of the future will have to do with problems of human conduct +rather than of the control of physical things; and, as these crises +come, our scholars in human relations should be more ready for the call +to mobilize. + +In practically every case the instances that I have given of the +successful tests of our scholarship involve the work of a member of Phi +Beta Kappa or of the sister society, Sigma Xi; and I therefore may be +permitted to say a word more directly to our younger members of the +society of those seeking the philosophy of life, to our Columbia +scholars in the making. In my time, which, by the way, was just +twenty-one years ago, a man who wanted to live the life of a scholar was +practically limited to teaching as the means of making his living. The +result in the way of incompetent and halfhearted teaching we all know. +Let me say to you of to-day that unless you want to teach, there is no +reason under heaven why you should do so. There are plenty of other +means of earning an honest living. The scholar is not nowadays limited +to the academic halls. We have scholars of the first quality not only in +special research institutions, but in government bureaus and in +industrial organizations. The men in government service who could be +spared from their other responsibilities for war work made an excellent +war record. On the other hand, we want to remember that the real +teacher, whether in the faculty or out of it, has a tremendous +advantage in the art of presentation. During the war the effectiveness +of our scholar teachers was well tested by an entirely new set of +pupils, pupils sometimes with eagles or stars on their shoulders, or in +the civil field, captains of industry, clad in the glittering armor of a +big business reputation. + +Nowadays one cannot be a scholar in general. One has to have some +specialty. As to what that specialty shall be in terms of usefulness to +the community, I think I have given you examples enough to show that the +range is almost unlimited. I had planned to sum up this by a brief +record of the discovery and application to war purposes of helium; but I +find that one of my own students in Columbia College, now a member of +the Geological Survey, has beaten me out; and you can find the whole +story in the May issue of the _National Geographic Magazine_. I cannot +resist, however, a summary of the steps. First, the astronomer, just +about the time this chapter was established, finds a new line in the +solar spectrum. Thirty years later, the geologist comes upon an unusual +stone and turns to a great chemist for its analysis, with the consequent +recognition of helium as a mundane element. About the same time comes +its identification as one of the newly recognized ingredients of the +air, and the study of its properties. Then a Kansas chemist discovers +its presence in some natural gas about which he was consulted because it +would not burn properly. Then comes the war with its incendiary bullet +and the need of a non-inflammable content for balloons and dirigibles. +Then the coöperation of physicist, engineer, and geologist--Canadian and +American--makes helium available for this purpose. Before these +researches helium cost $1700 a cubic foot and was obtainable only in +Germany. The present price is 10 cents a cubic foot, and it is falling. +The importance of all this for peace is very great. In these days of +airplane hops we are forgetting that a Zeppelin made the trip from +Bulgaria to what should have been German East Africa with medicines and +ammunition. The Germans having disappeared in the meantime, the Zeppelin +turned around and came back, making a continuous voyage of several +thousand miles. + +But do not forget that not all scholars made good in the great test. Let +me sum up what I have already said. In the first place, to be useful the +scholarship must be sound. The near-scholar, the man who took the +short-cut in preparation, proved to be a positive danger. The mere +expert in some narrow field, the man who did not realize the +implications of what he knew, was relatively useless. A man to succeed +had to be intense without being narrow. Even among the sound scholars, +the men who really knew, the isolated and insulated individual could +very rarely make much headway. It was the open-minded scholar, the maker +and keeper of friends, who got his chance, the scholar whose learning +was to him a living thing, not necessarily to be displayed in the market +place, and never for the sake of the display, but on the other hand +never wrapped in a napkin and buried in the earth. + +Will the scholar, now that his practical worth has been tested and +proved, be content to slip back into relative obscurity; or will he, on +the other hand, be tempted too far into the limelight and thereby lose +those very qualities which gave him his value? Will he be satisfied with +positions of leadership rather than leadership itself, which may be a +very different thing? It is largely for you young men and young women of +the rising generation of scholars to say. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 2: An address delivered before the New York Delta of Phi Beta +Kappa at Columbia University upon the fiftieth anniversary of the +establishment of the Chapter, June 3, 1919.] + + + + +WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?[3] + + +I am going to try to select three or four general fields in which we +Americans have had a chance to learn lessons of permanent value as the +result of our war experience. Then I shall try to apply these to what +seems to me the most typical specimen of the best in American life, a +great American University; and finally, I shall try to apply them to the +situation which faces you young men and women of the graduating class as +you step out to take your places in the world. And in so doing I'm going +to look deliberately on the bright side. There are troubles enough in +the world to worry and depress us, and we have to face them, but let us +face them with a confidence that is justified in the light of the +examples of man's endurance, of his courage, of his possibilities of +accomplishment, which it has been our privilege to witness within the +lifetime of this academic generation. + +What have we learned? In the first place, we have learned that as a +nation we possess the power to see a big job through, and we possess it +because we have the qualities of youth--enthusiasm, learning capacity, +energy, elasticity, initiative--the pioneering spirit. We have the +shortcomings of youth also--impatience, superficiality, improvidence, +cock-sureness--but when the test came we managed to strengthen our +virtues and to a large extent to overcome our failings. + +The various stocks that have emigrated to our shores have come as +successive waves of pioneers, of men to whom new and unfamiliar +conditions serve as an incentive rather than a discouragement, and it is +the persistence of this pioneering spirit, essentially a youthful +spirit, which has had much to do with our success. + +What single group made the finest impression in the great war? I think +we will agree that it was the American doughboy. As one saw him in +France he was absolutely youth incarnate, and he is a cross section of +our complex population. If anyone still doubts that all of these stocks, +the Teutonic included, have been willing to do their share even at the +risk or cost of life, let him read any of the lists of battle +casualties or the list of honors for heroic conduct and he will have the +best kind of proof. Let us remember in this connection that nearly +one-fourth of our drafted men couldn't speak and write English +adequately when they entered the Army. In spite of a number of unsightly +pieces of slag, which are either floating on the surface or have sunk to +the bottom, the great national melting pot has evidently done its work +well. + +Our heterogeneous immigration, our enormous national resources, which +have tempted us to live on capital rather than on interest, our +prosperity, have made us neither fat nor flabby. We now know that as a +people we don't really care about money or the money game if we are +shown some other game better worth playing; that selfishness and luxury +drop away as if by magic when they interfere with the keener +satisfactions of giving one's self. Even for us stay-at-homes, the +Liberty Loan people, Mr. Hoover, the Red Cross and other welfare workers +were on hand to show us how to play the better game. I don't need to +remind you of the details, nor that in spite of human grumbling and talk +of sacrifice, in the bottom of our hearts we all enjoyed the process. + +In the second place, we have learned that to see the job through we need +all of the nation, men and women, not merely the profession of arms and +the mysterious powers of finance--we need all of everyone. We need them +not as individuals but as a team, and we have learned that we can +develop team play. + +Our easiest jobs were the raising of our men and our money; our hardest, +the moulding of the whole into an organic unity. Just as our young men +by the millions took their place in the line when the bugle blew, older +men by the tens of thousands left their private affairs to get along as +best they might, and regardless of political affiliations or personal +convenience, found place for themselves in the administrative army. And +they were ably seconded by the women. Hundreds of men in key positions +have gladly borne witness to the share which their secretaries and their +other women associates played in bringing about the needed results. + +The first days of the war were days of whirling confusion, colored by +glowing forecasts. Then followed months of experimentation, by trial and +error, of hope deferred by long delays, of well meant but none the less +embarrassing internal rivalries, of sudden spurts. Later came the days +of last autumn, when the whole great machine was throbbing rhythmically +and steadily, with only a minor "knock" here and there--a sure +indication to the watchful enemy, who had had more than a taste of what +the machine could produce, that the game was up; and finally the +eleventh of November and the order to reverse the engines. + +It ought to be evident from our experience that for any great enterprise +we need all the young men and the young women, and all the older ones +who are still young in heart. We need to know who they are, where they +are, what they can do, and we need to touch them at every point; for not +only do we need them all, but we need all of each one of them. We should +never again face a great national crisis with nearly one-third of our +men of military age unfit for hard physical work. We need campaigns of +physical education and social hygiene, and we need to apply the lessons +in human salvage which the army has learned during the war. But we need +more than each individual and all of him. We must see to it that the +individual star, of whatever magnitude, is subordinated to the team play +of the group. And team play means more than energy and "pep." It means +a marshalling of the old fashioned and homely virtues of courtesy, +deference and consideration. + + * * * * * + +In the third place, we have learned that to accomplish a great result we +need the leadership of those who know and who know vividly and +constructively. Our experience has been that in certain fields, finance, +science, manufacturing in quantity production, medicine, we had a supply +of those who knew. In other fields, in intimate knowledge of foreign +conditions and foreign languages for example, we had not. + +At first we didn't know where our leaders were, and in many cases we +began by following false prophets. The value of one man with training, +brains and persistence can be shown by a single example: There was a man +who answered these qualifications connected with the Council of National +Defence, not in a very exalted position. He was the first in all this +country to see that the army program and the shipping program did not +fit. It took him a long time to convince the two groups of overworked, +harried officials that neither could play the game alone; that the +closest coöperation was necessary. He had no access to the records, but +he finally managed to build up a convincing statement out of the shreds +of information which he gathered here and there, and at last he +succeeded in getting everyone concerned into the attitude of wanting to +face the facts. Everyone would have had to face them sooner or later, +but without the devotion and leadership of this one man, it would have +been only as the result of a very serious dislocation of function. + +One field in which the right leadership has been most brilliantly +rewarded is that of medicine. Just consider what we have done in this +field: The success of the anti-typhoid injections; the reduction in +dysenteric diseases due to chlorination of drinking water; the +encouraging fight against cerebro-spinal meningitis and pneumonia; the +identification of trench fever, and the practical freedom from typhus. +As to wounds, a tetanus antitoxin which has made lock-jaw almost a +negligible disease; a serum against gas gangrene; the Carrel-Dakin +method of chemical sterilization of wounds; the splinting of fractures +on the battle field and overhead extension apparatus in the hospital. To +quote Simon Flexner, "The entire psychology of the wounded men was +altered, the wards made cheerful and happy, pain abolished, infection +controlled, and recovery hastened by means of the new or improved +surgical and mechanical measures put into common use." + + * * * * * + +The fourth lesson of which I wish to speak is that a high aim and ideal +is what counts most of all, what lifts the individual up from +selfishness and sloth. To bind the country together and to make the +transformation which still seems miraculous, we had a noble national +aim, a complete dedication to the task before us, an utter absence of +any selfish or self-seeking factor in the whole enterprise. The conduct +of our soldiers, their submission to a discipline to which most of them +were completely unused was, I think, in a very large measure due to the +recognition of this aim. We recognized it as a nation and we recognized +it in one another. The standard of contact set by our soldiers during +the days of conflict is unique in military history. Whole divisions went +for months without a single court-martial. The reason was, more than +anything else, the national assumption that they would give a good +account of themselves and the fact that they felt themselves in +training for the championship, and no man wanted to miss his chance on +the battlefield for the sake of a selfish indulgence. + +Some of the experiments in conduct tried in the American Expeditionary +Forces were extraordinary in their success. The leave areas, an immense +enterprise, were run on the basis of absolute freedom to the enlisted +man. He lived in the best hotels in Europe and amused himself in casinos +where crowned heads had been in the habit of gambling away the money of +their subjects. He had no roll calls, no taps, no officers in sight, no +military machinery whatever. He arose when he pleased, either before or +after his breakfast; he ate and drank when he pleased, and he stayed out +as late as he pleased. The physical and moral effect of this absolute +change from the military régime was a very interesting and instructive +phenomenon, but that is not the point I wish to make. Out of the +thousands and thousands of men who were sent to these leave areas, there +was hardly a single case in which a man abused the trust which was put +upon him or failed to turn up on time to go back to the grind of +military duty. This could never have been done with soldiers of another +type, with soldiers lacking an ideal. + +Someone has recently written that fine minds have been finely touched by +the war, and base minds basely. He might have added that wise minds have +been wisely touched, and foolish minds foolishly. In general, I think it +may fairly be said that when the appeal was to the finest in a man's +character, the result was correspondingly fine. + + * * * * * + +These, it seems to me, are the four main things we have learned, or at +any rate we have had a chance to learn. First, that we are a real +nation, potentially strong with the strength of youth. Second, that to +fulfill our mission, every man and woman and all of every such +individual is an object of national concern; that we must be mobilized +and we must continue our lessons in team play. We have still plenty to +learn in this field. Third, that we must have and must recognize the +leadership of those who know, which, after all, is the great test of a +democracy. Fourth, that to bring out the best that is in us, as +individuals and as a nation, we must have an aim, high, clear-cut and +clearly understood. If, now, I attempt to apply these four lessons which +we have had a chance to learn, to educational conditions, and +particularly to university conditions, it will be for three reasons: The +first is the general wisdom of confining one's remarks to things he +knows something about. The second, that there is no single institution +more characteristic of the best in our American life than a great +American University. And there is this third reason, that if we had not +had a supply of young men with the stamp of the American college upon +them, we could never have met the call for officers, for nearly a +quarter of a million of them. I am told that the Germans were prepared +to admit and to discount our wealth in money, in materials and in man +power, but they looked forward confidently to a complete failure on our +part in training officers to lead our men in battle. Of course, all the +citizen officers who made good records were not college men, but the +college trained citizens were the men who set the pace and made the +standard. + +It was Pitt who said, "The atrocious crime of being a young man I shall +attempt neither to palliate nor to deny." Nor should a university seek +to palliate or to deny the charge of being a place of resort for youth. +A university, it seems to me, should be a place where the primary object +is not the repression of youthful exuberance nor the correction of +youthful failings (though both may be necessary on occasion), but +rather, a place for the encouragement of the great and vital qualities +of youth--enthusiasm, energy, power of acquisition, sensitiveness of +impression. It is the place where the older members of the community +have the best chance to stay young. The university should be essentially +a company of enthusiasts, of pioneers. There is a frontier for every +worker to clear--no matter how narrow or how wide his horizon may be. In +a university there is no proper place, among faculty or students, for +the disillusioned, the cynical, the defeatist. + + * * * * * + +Now we come to the application of the second lesson, the lesson of +mobilization, of team play. In the first place, no university is alive +where mobilization is limited to the Recorder's office. In a live +institution, regent, professor, student, janitor, each is a part of the +game and must feel that he is. He must feel that in its administration +the institution has learned the great lesson of direct and human +personal contact. Science, among all its triumphs, cannot include any +device for conveying a message from mind to mind or from heart to heart +half so good as the human voice and the human eye. Within the faculty, +this element of human coöperation should be reflected by the vitality of +the organism rather than by the complexity of the organization, which +may not be vital at all. Each member must feel that the general repute +is safeguarded by honest and intelligent standards, honestly and +intelligently administered. The university, like the country at large, +must make itself responsible for all of each and every student, his +bodily condition, for example, just as directly as his mental. + +It will be recalled that one of my justifications for applying war +experiences to university conditions was the share which the college and +university men had in building up our supply of officers. If we study +why the college men made good officers, and make allowance for the fact +that it is the kind of man who goes to college who is likely to make a +good officer anyway, and all the other allowances we can think of, we +can't dodge the conclusion that there is something outside of the +college curriculum which has been an important factor in bringing about +the results. On the other hand, important as the other factors are, the +curriculum has had its share, and it is in my judgment a leading and +not always an adequately recognized share. The comfortable theory that +once he has settled down to something important the college +ne'er-do-well will suddenly blossom forth into a competent leader of men +didn't work out in practice. It may have happened here and there, but it +didn't happen as a general rule. In the fighting line, it was very +generally the man with a sound academic record, not necessarily the Phi +Beta Kappa lad, but the good scholar and active college citizen, the man +who had taken the trouble to learn things and learn people, who made the +best record. I naturally watched with particular interest the records of +my own old students at Columbia, and I know that this is so. + + * * * * * + +It is a significant fact, however, for those of us who are interested in +the welfare of college boys and girls, that the United States government +deliberately built up what was to all intents and purposes an +undergraduate college life for the young men of the army, with +athletics, dances, dramatics, singing, and all the rest, even including +opportunities for reading and study. Even the most hardened of regular +officers, who at the first, I fear, regarded this as some of the +civilian foolishness with which all soldiers have to contend, came to +see that the program was a vital factor in building up such a body of +fighting men as they had never seen. And this is only another way of +saying that if you want to use the human machine for any purpose, you +must concern yourself with the whole of it. Human nature does not come +in air-tight compartments. + +President Wilson coined a phrase which has thoroughly gone the rounds +when he said that the side-shows of college life should not overshadow +nor distract from the entertainment in the main tent. We all agree to +this. But I think we are more inclined than when the words were spoken +to urge that the side-shows, properly and intelligently subordinated, +should be under the same management as the main tent. The army has tried +the experiment on a large scale and it has worked well. In February last +there were in France and on the Rhine six million and a half individual +participants in athletic games, ten million attendants on +entertainments, nearly a quarter of a million students. + + * * * * * + +None of the lessons which the Army has learned are more significant +than those which have to do with mobilization and classification. The +activities of the Provost Marshal General, of the Committee on +Classification and Personnel, in coöperation with the Committee on +Education, furnish the best record of large scale human engineering in +the new science of personnel of which we have any record, either in this +country or, I think, elsewhere. + +A university like this one is an army, and not such a small army either, +judging by peacetime standards. The United States found that it was +worth while, indeed that it was absolutely necessary in organizing its +forces, to find out everything it could about every man in the army, +what he needed physically to increase his efficiency; what he needed to +keep him interested and out of mischief; what he should have in the way +of training--based on what he knew already and based on careful mental +tests--to make him of the greatest usefulness; whether he had the will +to win, and if not, whether anything could be done to get it into him. + +In a word, the United States wanted to know just what each man's +possibilities were. Was he officer material or non-com material? Should +he go into the line or one of the special corps--or to the labor +battalion? As a result of this program, the Army succeeded in finding a +place that counted for 98 per cent of the drafted men. + +Now I realize that a university can't do all these things with its army +in just the way the government can. It can't casually transfer a man +from engineering to psychology, nor a girl from philosophy to +cookery--or _vice versa_--no matter how desirable such a transfer might +be for the individual and the community. But it can do a great deal more +than it now does in finding out about all its members, informing them of +their strength and weaknesses, in seeing that every student gets a +chance to enjoy in so far as possible the high privileges of youth, and +to get a helping hand over the bumps in the road, which also come with +youth. Every student ought to have the opportunity to round out his +character and his capacities. It ought not to be left to chance that any +student gets the best personal contacts for him or her with faculty and +fellow-students, the best opportunities for learning team play. Every +student ought to leave with some definite aim in life, and if possible +an aim high enough to be an ideal that is worth working for. + +A university is not doing its full duty if its athletics and social life +are limited to those who need these the least; if its alumni are +regarded merely as fillers of the grandstands or recipients of oratory, +and possible sources of pecuniary support. The alumni are the best +possible sources of keeping the faculty informed as to what the world +really wants in the way of trained men and women, and, for the students, +of information, suggestions, and jobs, both temporary and permanent. + +I realize that many of these things are now done here and elsewhere, but +in the light of what we have learned from the experience of the +University of Uncle Sam, I am sure that our American universities and +colleges have hardly scratched the surface of what they might do and +what, I think, they will ultimately do in the realm of human +engineering. Nearly all educational institutions merely follow what they +find the leaders are doing, and in this field there is an opportunity, I +am sure, for real leadership. + +We know now that men and women can be measured by impersonal tests and +that it is practicable to put aside the material which it is either +impossible to fashion in the academic mould, or for which, even if the +job is possible, the expense in wear and tear is entirely beyond the +value of the result to be obtained. To be specific, why shouldn't we +have an intelligence test of candidates for the degree of Doctor of +Philosophy, just as we had a physical and psychological examination for +candidates for the flying schools? + +I don't mean that we should leap from one illogical position clear +across the road into another. Mental measurements are not yet an exact +science, and a man of moderate ability, with a will to succeed, may be a +better academic investment than his more brilliant brother who lacks +that quality; but, by pruning very sparingly (one does not have to chop +down a tree to prune it) the saving in time and energy will be enormous. + +Fundamentally the human relationships are what count, the qualities +leading to team play and coöperation, and away from isolation and its +ills. This means that if a faculty is to exercise its leadership, it +must know the student body, it must maintain and develop points of human +touch. Impersonal tests, impersonal records, all that modern practice +and modern science can teach us we must have, but these must be used +only as the framework for what is after all the fundamental thing, +direct human contact between teacher and teacher, teacher and student, +and student and student. + + * * * * * + +Now as to leadership, and in a university we can identify the leaders +with the teachers, there is no doubt, I think, that the teachers' +profession comes out of the war in a higher place than it went in, and +the scholar goes back to his work with a feeling of confidence in +himself in view of his record in competition and comparison with men in +other callings. I venture to predict that we shall hear a good deal less +frequently in the future the old gibe that the man who could do things +did them and the man who couldn't, taught them. The teachers made good, +not only because of their scholarship, but because of their personality. +I think this experience of the last two years is going to accelerate +greatly the movement which had already started of turning to the +academic world for the man who can do things and do them with other +people. Entirely apart from the contrasts in income, the sheer fun of +executive work, with plenty of money to spend on what you want to get +done, is a pretty strong temptation for a man with a heavy teaching +schedule and an annual department appropriation of say $75. Both the +regular army officers who have made conspicuously good, and the scholars +of the coöperative type who have made conspicuously good, are being +actively bidden for by bankers and manufacturers and all sorts of +people. Neither profession can compete on the purely financial side with +these tempters and, in order to hold their first-rate men, they will +each have to make some greater contribution in the things that money +alone can't buy. + +Both in the nation and in our republics of letters and science, we must +learn to distinguish more clearly between the power that comes with +knowledge, and the ability to talk about things. It was very interesting +to watch in Washington the gradual substitution of the man with the +latter quality by the man with the former in positions of +responsibility, and I am going to confess that, in the early days, some +of the conferences which it was my privilege or my duty to attend, +reminded me for all the world of certain faculty meetings, in which +gentlemen without definite knowledge of the matter in hand were +discussing at considerable length what they were pleased to call +principles, but which were really off-hand impressions. + +I think that in their service to the university and to the nation, the +scholars may well profit by the demonstration that it was not only the +man who knew his subject, but the man who knew how to deal with his +fellow men, who was likely to make his impression. Isn't there such a +thing as academic provincialism, even within the walls of a man's own +university, certainly as between institution and institution, which can +be remedied by the encouragement of these social and coöperative sides +of the scholar's character? It seems to me that we all should face a +fundamental extension in the definition of a scholar, away from the +individual, the selfish, out to the social and constructive. + +In our educational institutions scholarship has three functions: To +broaden the field of existing knowledge, and the war has shown us that +every field has its valuable practical applications; to train the coming +generation of experts, and any country needs not only a handful of +distinguished leaders but a great body of well-trained men and women +who, when the emergency arises, stand ready to meet it; and last but not +least, to inspire a recognition of what scholarship is and a respect for +it in the minds of the general students, few of whom, by the most +generous stretch of the imagination, can be regarded as scholars +themselves, but whose influence in their generation throughout the +country is a very important factor. Our nation needs a respect for +expert knowledge and it needs a respect for intelligence, and our +college graduates can do more than any other group to develop this +respect. + + * * * * * + +We have taken up three of our four lessons as these affect the +university: the emphasis on youth, the need of mobilization and team +play, and the need of leadership. There remains the fourth factor, a +high, clear-cut aim. + +The most serious charge against the American undergraduate in the past +has been the lack of a sense of responsibility. We now know from their +war records that the sense of responsibility lay latent in thousands of +these boys and was only awaiting an impulse sufficiently strong to +arouse it. + +President Hibben of Princeton, who ought to know the American +undergraduate if anybody does, said recently: "Young men are capable of +far greater amounts of intensive work day in and day out than we had +dreamed of; capable of greater concentration of mind upon their tasks. +They respond more quickly than we have conceived to the call of duty. +The sense of responsibility is there latent, and we teachers must +endeavor to quicken and to appeal to it. We have seen that when the +occasion comes these young men rise to meet it." + +We can't very well stage a world war for the purpose, and I don't think +we need wait for any such crisis to bring it out. There is in every +normal, wholesome-minded student some motor nerve that can be touched in +such a way as to release that type of coördinated energy which we call a +sense of responsibility. This all goes back to knowing our men and women +and establishing human contacts and human confidences. + +In spite of individual disappointments, and as a college dean, I have +had my share, I am confident that the normal young American either +already possesses as a motive force some worth-while aim or that he can +be guided toward such an aim if approached in the right way. + +Let me quote a paragraph or so from the report of the War Department +Committee on Education: + +"Because the war did completely organize the nation for a united drive +and thus did expose a magnificent national morale, many are inclined to +believe that war is necessary to call forth such consecration and +self-forgetful service. Analysis of the war training, however, reveals a +point of view and a method of procedure that is definitely designed to +develop team-play and to enhance morale whether there be war or not. If +these methods are applied to education in times of peace, they certainly +will produce some effect even though the result is not as profoundly +striking as it was during the war. Among the many significant features +of war training, the following are mentioned as worthy of particular +consideration for transfer to school practice: + +"As a primary policy, a nation at war is obliged to recognize that every +individual is an asset capable of useful service in some particular line +of work of direct benefit to the country. In order to make the most +efficient use of all its resources, it is necessary to make strenuous +exertions to discover what each individual is best qualified to do and +to train each to use his abilities in the most effective manner. Applied +to education this fundamental attitude produces two results that are of +importance in the development of morale. The teacher's point of view +shifts from a critical one, with attention focused on discovering +whether the individual measures up to the academic standards fixed by +school authorities, to one of friendly, not to say eager interest to +discover what each individual really can do well. The student's spirit +also changes from one of discouragement and doubt of his ability ever to +make good, to one of interest and desire for achievement. Both of these +results are of large importance in releasing energy for both the teacher +and the student. They also have an immediate bearing on the enhancement +of morale." + +In any place of campaign to this end within a college or university, the +first thing to do is to build around that vague but very real emotion +called college spirit, to supplement this by guiding our young people to +enlist in worth-while, nation-wide or world-wide causes (we are +singularly provincial about this in America), and by ensuring better +teaching and supervision and better coördination of work. + +There is no question that we have underestimated both the American +undergraduate's capacity for intellectual work and his real pleasure in +it when he feels it worth while. One of my friends was telling me of +his experiences as commanding officer of one of the ground schools for +aviators, where a large proportion of the candidates were college +undergraduates, and I asked him if he had had any troubles as to +discipline. "Yes indeed," he replied, "night after night we'd catch some +fellows studying with a peep-light under their blankets, after taps had +sounded." + +Any doubts as to the instinctive reaction of the normal, healthy young +American toward educational opportunities were dispelled by the +experiences of the army in France after the armistice. The let-down, +after the terrific physical and emotional strain, the impatience +regarding any delay as to return home, combined to make a pretty serious +situation as to the morale of our troops. After some misguided and +nearly disastrous experiments as to the curative properties of heavy +drill and strict discipline, the A.E.F. recognized the necessity for a +prompt and thorough stimulation of all the welfare activities, and a +real educational program; and it was straight, old-fashioned book-work +more than it was the movies, or athletics, more even than Miss Elsie +Janis, which turned the corner for us. In all, more than 200,000 men +volunteered for the privilege of studying. The military order was often +reversed and majors sat at the feet of the corporals or privates who had +been selected as teachers. The reports as to the intensity of the work +of teachers and students alike should put any of us professionals to +shame. + + * * * * * + +Just now we are hearing a great deal about the benefits of discipline. I +think what the speakers are really talking about, though they don't +recognize it themselves, is the benefit of the state of mind which +accepts and welcomes discipline. We are not, even as the result of the +war, a disciplined people in the sense that Germany is, or was, and we +can thank God for it. We shall never want in this country a general +subordination of the individual will and initiative to external control. +Discipline is a means and not an end. If discipline, as such, externally +imposed, were so important a factor in success as many people seem to +think to-day, we could look through a list of ex-enlisted men in the +army and navy--I mean the men enlisted and discharged during peace +time--and find a relatively large number who made conspicuously good +records after returning to civil life. As a matter of fact, we find +nothing of the kind. + +What we do find is that not a few enlisted men who chose the army or the +navy as their permanent career have won commissions and made fine +records. There were no better general officers in the war than men like +Harbord of our army and Robertson of the British, both of whom rose from +the ranks. But isn't it fair to say that the discipline imposed on these +men was accepted gladly and accepted in the terms of their fundamental +interest, and that these men are not really exceptions to what I have +said? + +I venture to predict that there will be a very different record to tell +as to the success in civil life of those men now leaving the Army, who, +because they believed in the cause and wished to participate to the full +in the great enterprise, gladly submitted themselves to the discipline +for the purpose of increasing their efficiency. + +In a month or so you can teach an enthusiastic man, who is fired by a +big idea, all the discipline he needs for carrying out his duties and +profiting by his opportunities, but you can't reverse the process and +incite enthusiasms as a result of the application of discipline. + +Don't think that I want to minimize the merits of military discipline +for military purposes. Of course, coördination and subordination are +absolutely necessary in the handling of large bodies of men. Even the +men in France who deserted to the front, as many of them did, no matter +how much we may sympathize with their desire to get into the game, had +to be disciplined. Someone had to stay behind and see to the supplies. +The point we are discussing is the carrying over of this principle of +military discipline intact into civilian life. So far as discipline +brings about regularity of life, of exercise, so long as it ministers to +alertness, we can use it, but as between discipline on the one hand, and +initiative and team play on the other, to meet our academic or our +national needs, I am for initiative and team play. + +Please don't misunderstand me. By reducing the present emphasis on +external discipline, after childhood has been passed, I don't mean a +lowering of standards. External discipline, it seems to me, is often +really imposed as a substitute for high standards; something supposed to +be just as good and more easy to keep in stock. The standards of the +worth-while organization, and these are the outward expression of its +aims, its ideals, ought to be high enough and intelligently enough +administered to make sure that the men and women who are unable to +provide their own discipline, should in the general interest be +painlessly but promptly removed from the group. + +Here is a _credo_ for the American people, from the pen of a regular +army officer. It's a pretty good one for an American University: "To +foster individual talent, imagination and initiative, to couple with +this a high degree of coöperation, and to subject these to a not too +minute direction; the whole vitalized by a supreme purpose, which serves +as the magic key to unlock the upper strata of the energies of men." + + * * * * * + +Finally, let me try to apply these lessons to you young men and women of +the graduating class. + +Keep in good physical shape. Overwork is usually a combination of bad +air, bad feeding, and lack of exercise and sleep. See that you don't go +stale. If you lack the zest of life, find out what the trouble is; +whether it is your teeth or your liver or your soul. Picture to yourself +what Theodore Roosevelt got out of life. + +Be honest with yourself. Do your own thinking and do it straight. This, +strangely enough, is perhaps the thing which you will find hardest to do +after the undergraduate atmosphere. A student body is, or at any rate +was before the war, the most convention ridden group of which I have any +knowledge. I am all for conventions, because they save a great deal of +time and worry, but only so far as we recognize them as conventions and +do not exalt them into principles or philosophical truths. Remember that +the public opinion of America is an infinitely more important thing to +the world than ever before, and that you are each to be a part of it. + +Keep your intellectual interests and your interest in your _alma mater_, +not in her athletics and her fraternities alone. Remember that as alumni +of this University you are citizens of no mean city. Recruit men and +women whom she ought to have and who ought to have her, remembering that +the danger to this country from the inside, and it is no inconsiderable +danger, is mainly due to the misdirected zeal of sincere people who lack +knowledge and background. Take for example the employer who can't see +beyond the point of telling his men to "take it or leave it," and the +workman whose sense of real or fancied injustice has brought him to what +with our children we know as the kicking and biting stage. It is too +late to do much with the present adult generation except by main +strength and awkwardness, but a recruit for higher education from either +of these groups is a good national investment. + +Keep your human contacts. Don't be a "glad-hander" but do at least your +share. It takes two to make and keep alive a friendship, just as it does +a quarrel. There is something worth while in everyone. Give yourself a +chance to find what it is. Practice following and, as the chance comes +to you, practice leading, but above all, practice team play. Keep +yourself ready to take the next step, whatever it may be. There is a +story of Marshal Joffre, of which I can at least say that it is good +enough to be true. After the first battle of the Marne some enthusiast +was proclaiming him as a second Napoleon and laying it on pretty thick. +The old gentleman stood it as long as he could and then said: "No, +Napoleon would have known what to do next, and I don't." + +Keep your enthusiasms and your ideals. In other words, keep your youth. +In choosing your life work, get into something in which the policy and +practice are such that you can throw your whole soul into the job. Don't +take yourself seriously, but take your opportunities for usefulness +seriously. Find out the callings in which America is short. There are +plenty of them, as the war has shown. Think over whether it isn't +possible for you to be one of the men or one of the women who, from your +training and momentum and vision, will be selected ten or fifteen or +twenty years hence, to take on some important job, with the nation as +your client, as the one person best qualified to fill it. + +We no longer have to prove that it pays to know, to really know almost +anything that is worth while. It pays in money, if that is what one +wants; it pays in the more enduring satisfactions of life, in the +pleasure that comes from exact knowledge and intellectual pioneering, in +the almost unique joy of creation without the responsibilities of +possession, and in the feeling of individual readiness to be of use in +meeting the problems which the years allotted to your generation will +surely bring forth. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 3: Commencement address delivered at the University of +Michigan, June 26, 1919.] + + + + ++-----------------------------------------------+ +| Transcriber's Note: | +| | +| Typographical error corrected in the text: | +| | +| Page 52 centerdness changed to centeredness | ++-----------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS*** + + +******* This file should be named 32608-8.txt or 32608-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/2/6/0/32608 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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(Frederick Paul) Keppel</title> + <style type="text/css"> + p { margin-top: .5em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .5em; + text-indent: 1em; + } + h1 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h5,h6 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h2 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h3 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h4 { + text-align: center; font-family: garamond, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + h1.pg,h4.pg { + text-align: center; font-family: Times-Roman, serif; /* all headings centered */ + } + hr { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + body{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + a {text-decoration: none} /* no lines under links */ + div.centered {text-align: center;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 1 */ + div.centered table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;} /* work around for IE centering with CSS problem part 2 */ + + .cen {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} /* centering paragraphs */ + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} /* small caps */ + .noin {text-indent: 0em;} /* no indenting */ + .img {text-align: center; padding: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;} /* centering images */ + .tdr {text-align: right;} /* right align cell */ + .tdrb {text-align: right; vertical-align: bottom;} /* right align cell */ + .tdrp {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em;} /* right align with padding */ + .tdl {text-align: left;} /* left align cell */ + .tr {margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 1em; background-color: #f6f2f2; color: black; border: dotted black 1px;} /* transcriber's notes */ + .ad {margin-left: 25%; margin-right: 25%; margin-top: 5%; margin-bottom: 5%; padding: 1em; background-color: inherit; border: solid black 1px;} /* boxed ad */ + + .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; + font-size: 75%; + color: silver; + background-color: inherit; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers */ + + .footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + .footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 90%;} + .footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right; font-size: 90%;} + .fnanchor {vertical-align: text-top; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;} + + .poem {margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; text-align: left;} + .poem br {display: none;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem span {display: block; margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i2 {display: block; margin-left: 2em;} + .poem span.i4 {display: block; margin-left: 4em;} + .poem span.pn { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; + font-size: 75%; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + color: silver; background-color: inherit; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers in poems */ + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 0em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + border: solid black; + height: 5px; } + pre {font-size: 85%; } + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Some War-time Lessons, by Frederick P. +(Frederick Paul) Keppel</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Some War-time Lessons</p> +<p> The Soldier's Standards of Conduct; The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship; What Have We Learned?</p> +<p>Author: Frederick P. (Frederick Paul) Keppel</p> +<p>Release Date: May 30, 2010 [eBook #32608]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h4 class="pg">E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net/c/">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> + from page images generously made available by<br /> + Internet Archive/American Libraries<br /> + (<a href="http://www.archive.org/details/americana">http://www.archive.org/details/americana</a>)</h4> +<p> </p> +<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;" cellpadding="10"> + <tr> + <td valign="top"> + Note: + </td> + <td> + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/somewartimelesso00kepprich"> + http://www.archive.org/details/somewartimelesso00kepprich</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<div class="ad"> +<p class="cen"> +COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS<br /> +SALES AGENTS<br /> + +<span class="smcap">New York</span><br /> +LEMCKE & BUECHNER<br /> +30-32 <span class="smcap">East 20th Street</span><br /> + +<span class="smcap">London</span><br /> +HUMPHREY MILFORD<br /> +<span class="smcap">Amen Corner, E.C.</span><br /> + +<span class="smcap">Shanghai</span><br /> +EDWARD EVANS & SONS, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br /> +30 <span class="smcap">North Szechuen Road</span><br /></p> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1>SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS</h1> +<br /> +<h3>THE SOLDIER'S STANDARDS OF CONDUCT<br /> +<br /> +THE WAR AS A PRACTICAL TEST OF<br /> +AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP<br /> +<br /> +WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?</h3> +<br /> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h2>FREDERICK PAUL KEPPEL</h2> + +<h3>THIRD ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/deco.jpg" width="10%" alt="Publisher's Mark" /> +</div> + +<br /> +<h4>New York<br /> +COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS<br /> +1920<br /> + +<i>All rights reserved</i></h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h5>Copyright, 1920<br /> + +<span class="smcap">By Columbia University Press</span><br /> + +Printed from type, January, 1920</h5> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h5>PRINTED AT<br /> +THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS<br /> +NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A</h5> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> + +<h3>TO</h3> + +<h3>NEWTON D. BAKER </h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="70%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp" width="10%"> </td> + <td class="tdl" width="80%"> </td> + <td class="tdrb" width="10%" style="font-size: 80%;">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp" style="vertical-align: top;">I.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The American Soldier and His Standards of Conduct</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp" style="vertical-align: top;">II.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">The War as a Practical Test of American Scholarship</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdrp">III.</td> + <td class="tdl smcap">What Have We learned?</td> + <td class="tdrb"><a href="#Page_66">66</a></td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS</h2> + +<h2>THE AMERICAN SOLDIER AND HIS<br /> STANDARDS OF CONDUCT<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + + +<p>Perhaps the greatest laboratory experiment in human conduct in the +history of the world has been the development of our Army during the +past two years. Under the provisions of the Selective Service Law, this +Army has represented a cross section of American male humanity—even +more representative indeed than was intended; for in the efforts of the +Local Boards to send men who could best be spared, many found their way +into the ranks who were handicapped from the start by low mentality or +disease. What were the guiding forces which operated upon this body of +nearly four million men?</p> + +<p>In the first place, our country entered the war with a great moral +purpose, untinged by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>any trace of national or individual selfishness. +We really have to go back to the Crusades to find the like. And, as +then, each man supplemented this great basal impulse with whatever was +to him the strongest incentive—religion, patriotism, pride of family or +state or regiment, the desire to excel in what all were attempting.</p> + +<p>In the second place, thanks primarily to the vision and determination of +one man, the individual appeal to each soldier as to his personal share +in the great enterprise was upon the highest plane. We were fortunate in +having at the head of the War Department a man peculiarly sensitive to +community problems and with no small experience in their solution. +Through the centuries men had come to the belief that if their soldiers +were only valiant and disciplined in arms, it would not do to inquire +too curiously into their personal standards of conduct in other +matters—that a considerable wastage in military strength from +drunkenness and disease was inevitable. And as we all know, this wastage +has in the past sapped, not only the strength of the Army, but +afterwards the very life of the nation to which the soldier must sooner +or later return.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>The Secretary of War and his lieutenants, chief among whom in this field +should be placed the Chairman of the Committee on Training Camp +Activities, Raymond B. Fosdick, approached this problem neither in the +fatalistic spirit that what has always been must continue to be, nor in +a spirit of what, for want of a better term, I may call doctrinaire +idealism. They faced the fact that among the hundreds of thousands of +young men who were to be called to the colors, there would be many whose +ears would be deaf to any abstract appeal, and many others to whom such +an appeal might be made under normal conditions, but who in fatigue or +the let-down following the strain of conflict, could not be depended +upon to stand in the hour of temptation. As a result the whole field of +preventive measures was thoroughly studied and vigorous treatment was +applied. The Army regulations as to prophylaxis and the introduction of +intoxicants into camps were strictly and honestly enforced. The Army saw +to it that state and local laws as to liquor and prostitution were +properly carried out, and if these were lacking, they were promptly +enacted. The so-called Zone Law was adopted for the purpose of placing +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>the immediate vicinity of camps under Federal control. In some cases +where the community showed signs of regarding the Army policy in this +regard as a <i>beau geste</i> and nothing more, it was made to realize that +while the War Department could not compel the community to mend its +ways, it could and would move the camp in twenty-four hours to a more +wholesome environment. I am proud to say that it was necessary in only a +very few instances to bring forward this aspect of the situation, but +when it was necessary the Department spoke in no uncertain tone.</p> + +<p>As a result of this general policy, in which the Navy shared, many a +wide-open town received a thorough house cleaning for the first time in +its career; in all between 120 and 140 red light districts were closed +and kept closed; and the underlying sordidness of many a smug +self-satisfied village was brought to light and remedied.</p> + +<p>The men who came to the camps tainted with venereal disease or broken by +drink or morphine—and the number of these was great enough to shock our +national complacency (and incidentally to explode the national +assumption that the country is primarily the abode of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>virtue as the +city is of vice)—these men were salvaged by the tens of thousands and +turned into useful self-respecting soldiers and citizens.</p> + +<p>The lesson of clean living was taught by the spoken word, by the moving +picture, by the printed page, by the doctor with a scientific +thoroughness and by the layman with a frankness and sometimes a +colloquialism which would for once have rendered Mrs. Grundy speechless. +As an instrument of virtue, the tract is, of course, of time-honored +usage, but the name of George Ade in the list of tract writers is a new +and significant one.</p> + +<p>More important than all this, however, in my judgment, was the +realization by the Army of the great truth that the soldier—or any one +else for that matter—goes astray in only the rarest instances from +innate depravity. What he seeks primarily is relaxation and amusement. +And so wholesome relaxation and amusement were placed at his disposal to +take the place of the unwholesome. The whole nation rose to help in this +work of substituting the clean for the unclean. It poured its money by +the hundreds of millions into the coffers of the great welfare +societies, the Red Cross, The Young Men's Christian Association, Knights +of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>Columbus, Jewish Welfare Board, and later in recognition of its work +abroad, the Salvation Army. All of these vied with one another in a +rivalry which was sometimes embarrassing in its intensity. The American +Library Association supplied books and other reading matter, and the War +Camp Community Service made sure that, to the towns and villages +surrounding it, a cantonment presented an opportunity for service rather +than for exploitation. Not the least important factor in the superb +showing which our troops made in France was the spirit with which the +men and women of these same towns inspired the men from the training +camps whom they took into their homes and their hearts.</p> + +<p>Within the fabric of the Army the chaplains were doing their share, as +were the athletic leaders and song leaders and dramatic coaches. They +were seconded by the officers of the line, most of whom, it should be +said, saw the military usefulness of the whole program from the first, +many of the experienced regulars having always done what they could with +the limited means at their command along the same lines. Other officers, +however, had to be shown—and were shown—the military importance of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>the truth that the merry heart goes all the day, and the sad one tires +in a mile.</p> + +<p>The work of planning and coördination was in the hands of the civilian +Commission on Training Camp Activities, of which Mr. Fosdick has been +from the first the Chairman. The work of this Commission has been +characterized from the outset by a courage and resourcefulness for which +no praise can be too high. The theatre for example has not always been +looked upon by the American people as a moral agency, but the Commission +saw its place in the scheme of things and no fewer than thirty-seven +great playhouses have been erected at the camps and the audiences have +run literally into the millions. Boxing likewise was encouraged, even +though some of the contests which resulted were not of the most gentle. +Cantonment towns were persuaded to open the "Movies" on Sunday, the only +day on which most soldiers could leave the Camp—the outcries of the +<i>unco guid</i> to the contrary notwithstanding.</p> + +<p>For more than a year the Commission and the welfare organizations were +the only organized forces in this general field, but since last summer +their work has been supplemented by the establishment within the Army +itself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>of a Morale Branch of the General Staff, in the formation of +which the Department was not too proud to take a leaf—perhaps one +should say a Blatt—from the Germans, who had already developed this +type of organization to a high degree, under the direct supervision of +General Ludendorff.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>I have spoken of the work of prevention, of the more important work of +substitution, and I now come to the most important of all—the spirit of +confidence which extended from top to bottom of the huge organization +that the great mass of our men would go straight for the sake of going +straight. We all instinctively couple the two words, "officer" and +"gentleman." In the great Army which is now being disbanded, its work +having been so gloriously done, we find a new and enlarged conception, +that of the soldier and gentleman. It was, I am certain, the preliminary +assumption that an American soldier was also an American gentleman in +all the fundamentals of that much-abused term, which was the great +factor in keeping down the number of those who proved the contrary to so +negligibly small a total.</p> + +<p>A few figures from the official records will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>show what the result of +this all has been. In 1909, for instance, there were in the Army, in +round numbers, 5500 court-martial convictions of enlisted men, out of a +total of 75,000. For the fifteen months ending July 1, 1918, there were +11,500 convictions out of a total of 2,200,000 enlisted men, the +percentage in the twelve months of peace being 7.3 and in the fifteen +months of war, .53, about one-fourteenth as great. The significance of +these later figures cannot be appreciated without some knowledge of the +underlying circumstances. One case I remember was that of a man who got +drunk, spent his money and that of some fellow soldiers, and stayed +absent without leave to earn money enough to repay his fellow soldiers +and then returned to camp to take his medicine. What on the surface +appears to be the cowardly crime of desertion was, in several instances +of which I have personal knowledge, a misguided effort to get to the +front, through enlistment under another name in some branch of the +service which seemed to have an earlier prospect of getting over. In +France there were many cases of desertion, but nearly all were from the +rear to the front. The progressive success of the policy of keeping the +soldier from strong <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>drink, by the way, stands out in the figures, which +show that early in the war one out of every twelve offenses charged +included drunkenness, but that this proportion dropped until the final +figures were less than one in each thirty offenses, this including +soldiers in France, where the soldier had to stand on his own feet +unprotected by prohibition laws.</p> + +<p>The welfare program was, from the nature of the case, most effective +among the men of the National Army, where it was possible to take the +soldiers in hand from the first. If we analyze the court-martial +records, we find that the proportion of court-martials was distinctly +lowest in this group. The records as of June 30, 1918, show that the +number of court-martials among the Regular Army was a little less than +one per cent, to be accurate 8/10 of one per cent; in the National Guard +the proportion was about 9/10 of one per cent; and in the National Army +it was less than 2/10 of one per cent, the exact figure being .143 per +cent, one-fiftieth of the percentage ten years ago.</p> + +<p>Another check on the efficiency of the program is found in the records +as to venereal disease in the Surgeon General's Office. It is hard to +get comparative figures because of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>constantly changing conditions, but +it has been shown beyond all doubt that the health conditions in the +Army have been far, far better than in the community at large. While the +latter are not so bad as the alarmists have implied, they are serious +enough in all conscience, when in no fewer than seventeen of the states, +sixty or more of every thousand men who appeared at the mobilization +camps were found to be infected. Taking a typical month before the +signing of the armistice, we find that the proportion of cases coming to +the camps from the civil community was fifteen times as great as the +proportion among our soldiers in France, even including the soldiers in +the port towns, where most of our difficulties there were found. The +comparison with the records of the cantonments in this country is even +more striking.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As to the purely religious appeal and its influence on the men it is +hard to speak with any degree of certainty. A visiting British general +in Washington, shortly after our entry into the war, was asked as to +conditions in England, and is reported to have replied, "Upon my soul, +if you ask me, I should say that with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>us the dear old Church has rather +missed the bus." In this country the organized religious forces have by +no means missed the bus, but if we are honest with ourselves we must +face the fact that since the last great national test, the Civil War, +other appeals to higher standards of conduct have both actually and +relatively been tremendously strengthened, and our religious leaders +must address themselves, in the light of experience during these past +two years, to a clearer understanding of these other forces and to a +closer coöperation with them. We cannot to-day close our eyes to the +truth that many of our finest men played their splendid parts quite +untouched by a religious motive or appeal—or at least doctrinal appeal; +one hesitates to call their attitude a non-religious one. It must always +be remembered, however, that their standards, no matter how unconscious +they may have been of the fact, were fundamentally based upon the +development of a Christian civilization.</p> + +<p>If thus far I may have seemed to measure soldier conduct by two +standards only, by his relation to drink and to women, it is because the +results of the policy of the Army in these two matters are measurable, +the records are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>outstanding. The Army and its experience however would +furnish but a poor guide to the Churches and the other civilian forces +for righteousness if its lessons were limited to the negative virtues, +important as they are, of sobriety and continence.</p> + +<p>The real contribution, what we have learned as to the positive virtues, +is harder to describe and impossible to measure, but the lessons are +worth looking for and may be learned from the letters and from the lips +of our men. Perhaps I can best indicate what the men themselves regard +as vital by telling the experience of a friend who started one of the +customary practical talks before an audience of our men behind the lines +in France. His homily didn't seem to be "getting across" and he was +inspired to ascertain just what to their minds were the most serious +offenses. He asked each man to write down what he regarded as the three +very worst faults against which a soldier should be on his guard. When +the answers were collected, one word appeared on practically every slip +of paper, <i>cowardice</i>; the second was not so nearly unanimous, but +appears on a strong majority of the papers, <i>selfishness</i>; and the third +was evidently <i>conceitedness</i>, though the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>defect was worded in +different ways, as <i>big head</i>, <i>crust</i>, and the like.</p> + +<p>In other words, the virtues which the soldier most admires and regarding +which he had evidently learned the most valuable lessons, are courage, +unselfishness or coöperativeness, and modesty.</p> + +<p>The record of our soldiers has proved beyond a doubt that once you get +men into groups with a common and a worth-while purpose, courage—both +the reckless courage that comes by instinct and that higher type, the +courage of the man who recognizes his danger—can no longer be assumed +to be a rare virtue. It is a very common virtue. Cowardice is infinitely +rarer. The citations and the casualty records, for instance, have +completely rehabilitated the Jew as a fighting man, and the faithful +need no longer go back to Josephus for their war legends.</p> + +<p>Not all the courage and fortitude was shown on the field of battle. We +must not forget that last fall we suffered from by far the most serious +epidemic in the history of America, and, in the dark days in our +training camps, opportunities were offered, and gladly accepted, for a +display of heroism and devotion of the highest type.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>In the realm of fortitude, if not of physical courage, the war certainly +tapped new sources of determination and provided a kind of stimulus +which would keep a man to whom no personal glory or conspicuousness +could possibly come, some poor devil sentenced to a swivel chair, +laboring in that same chair day and night for the purpose of making some +single improvement in nut or bolt, or perhaps filing card. Given the +impetus of a great common purpose, our possibilities for industry are +limitless.</p> + +<p>One thing that mankind should have learned long since is that, broadly +speaking, selfishness as a guiding motive is essentially negative—the +absence of something better—the man is a rare exception who does not +lose himself and his self-interest in the conception or the ambition of +the group, the squad or battalion or regiment, the division, the army or +the nation. An interesting side-light upon this is the fact that +two-thirds of the men who get into trouble in the Army, or at any rate +who get into sufficiently serious trouble to land them in Fort +Leavenworth, are markedly of the ego-centric type; in other words, are +men for whom the group cannot overcome the individual bias.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>That our soldiers as a whole possess the virtue of modesty, though it is +often overlaid by a veneer of innocent swagger, is beyond dispute, as +any one who has had to do with them can testify. And underlying and +inspiring their whole conduct have been the qualities of +whole-souledness and determination and an indomitable cheerfulness.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We must learn the lessons which the soldiers have to teach us in the +large just as we must grasp their accomplishments in the large. There is +a morning after for nations as well as for individuals, and we seem just +now to be in danger of losing our conception of the greatness of the +enterprise, and its essential soundness, through the intrusion of the +instances, relatively very few, where things did not go right; where +human nature did not reach the heights, or having reached them, failed +to remain upon them.</p> + +<p>It has, I think, been definitely proved that the mixing up of the +so-called welfare work with the special function of the clergymen or +other religious adviser, in order that the latter may be made more +palatable to the soldier, has an effect exactly the reverse of what was +intended. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>The policy of interpolating a prayer meeting, or a +heart-to-heart talk, between the third and fourth reels of the moving +picture play, and I grieve to say that such a policy was actually +followed for a while, is of course a fantastic example, but it shows +exactly how we ought not to do it.</p> + +<p>The soldiers are peculiarly sensitive to any feeling that what is done +for them is done for some other purpose than the ostensible one, +entirely apart from how worthy such other purpose may be. Let me quote +from a letter written by an officer of the Army who had been visiting a +number of camps:</p> + +<p>"The Camp Library to my mind fulfills one of the most vital needs of the +camp. It is a place where our men can get relaxation and mental +stimulus, and where they can feel at ease without the 'God-bless-you' +atmosphere of the other welfare organizations."... "It is the one place +in camp where you can go and have a chance to meditate or read in peace +and quiet without a piano jangling in your ears or the imminent +possibility of a prayer meeting."</p> + +<p>The chaplain or the lay religious worker to whom a man instinctively +turned at the moment when he needed spiritual help was the one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>whom he +had learned to respect for courage and devotion and dignity, the man who +had helped to bury his dead friend, to comfort and amuse his wounded +friend, and to advise his misguided friend in the guard-house; not the +one whose ill-timed ministrations he had learned to avoid. I understand +that the story of the chaplain who entirely forgot that he was to appear +at a review for the purpose of receiving a medal and delayed the entire +proceedings while he was sought for and found in his customary post in +the connecting trench, is absolutely authentic.</p> + +<p>The man who could forget his denomination in his devotion to the great +common mission was the man whom the soldier learned to love and to trust +and who could do the most in the day of battle. The most popular tales +among the chaplains are the tales of unorthodoxy: The Catholic priest +who baptized a group of his men before action in a shell hole with water +which was not only unblessed, but I fear unsanitary, and who simply +referred to Philip and the Eunuch when reproved; the Methodist and +Baptist, and I think the Episcopalian, who in the absence of their +Presbyterian colleague, solemnly and quite illegally received a +youngster <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>into the Presbyterian fold before he went overseas, and +confessed the next morning to the Presbyterian Board; the Wesleyan +chaplain in the British Army who carried a crucifix to comfort the dying +Catholics on the battlefield when no priest of their faith was near, and +who administered the last rites to them as best he could. There are +hundreds of such stories.</p> + +<p>The appeal of any denomination as such, or of the Y, or the +corresponding societies of other faiths, as such, was always mistaken. +It was the united appeal of all the doers of good deeds which counted. +If we never knew before, we know now the truth of the fable of the +bundle of fagots. Personally, I believe the united drive for welfare +work last fall, during which Protestant, Catholic and Jew, and men of no +formal religion whatever, appealed from the same platform for the same +great purpose, was an event of the greatest importance in our nation, +and it will go ill with us if we forget the lesson that it has to teach.</p> + +<p>The appeal must be not only disinterested, but it must be simple and +direct. This, and the careful selection of its personnel, had much, if +not most, to do with the extraordinary success of the Salvation Army. +There are times <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>in a soldier's life when the sewing on of a button at +some vital spot will do more to "get" him than anything else in the +world.</p> + +<p>Out of this spirit of general helpfulness, there were developed at +almost every point the most beautiful and sympathetic adjustments to +immediate conditions. For example, take the plan of showing moving +pictures upon the ceilings of hospital wards, so that the very ill may +enjoy them without the strain even of raising their heads. This small +piece of thoughtfulness to me represents the standard of thinking a +problem through which we will have to maintain if we are to hold what we +have gained, and what we have gained includes, or should include, a +realization that active and willing loving-kindness furnishes the +keenest of all pleasures.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Thus far I have spoken mainly of the work of preparation in the United +States. Overseas our soldiers and their officers found new conditions +and were forced to make new adjustments. We no longer could control the +laws and ordinances, and we found different standards of conduct—not +necessarily lower standards, but different standards. We could no longer +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>enforce prohibition for example, but we did maintain a high average of +temperance. We showed our allies, some of whom I may say were honestly +sceptical on the subject, that with our soldiers continence was the +rule, and not the exception. When I was in France last year, I asked +those who were in a position to know upon this point and was told that, +comparatively speaking, very, very few of our men lowered in France the +standards of conduct which they held when they came into the Army, that +many more greatly improved those standards, either because of the +lessons they had learned in our training camps, or because of the +wholesome companionship of the women workers with whom they were daily +brought in contact, or because, and this was probably the most potent +factor of all, they were so desperately keen to get into the fighting +line that they were taking no chances of being put out of commission +beforehand. Their morality was the morality of the team in training for +the big game, and it kept tens of thousands of boys straight. Indeed, +until November 11, disciplinary problems may be said to have been +practically non-existent among combat troops and almost negligible among +the others. After the armistice was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>signed, there was a let-down, this +being after all a very human body of young men, and the first remedy +tried by some of the old-time regulars did not help a bit. This was to +"give 'em plenty of drill and make 'em so tired they won't have energy +to get into mischief," but as one returning artillery officer pointed +out to me, when a battery a month before has fired 50,000 rounds of +high-explosive at the Boche, and worked its guns over craters and +through thickets, a drill with dummy ammunition on a parade ground is +almost a justification for mutiny. Wiser counsel soon prevailed and the +welfare work, which had slumped with the rest, was again brought up to +concert pitch. It was for the first time in France, properly coördinated +under Army control. The misfits and the workers who had worn themselves +out were returned to this country and their places taken by fresh blood. +I remember in this connection a paragraph tucked in the middle of the +uncompromising officialdom of the daily departmental cable: "Send over +plenty of welfare workers and remember the best men you can send are the +women."</p> + +<p>Let me take this chance to say a word about the criticisms we have been +hearing of this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>welfare work abroad. In the first place, the success of +the work in this country among the men in training set up an expectation +which it was humanly impossible to meet under the conditions overseas; +in other words, the men who went over assumed standards as to the +minimum amount of attention which it was their right to expect, the like +of which had never been dreamed in the history of mankind. As a matter +of fact, and taken as a whole, the treatment which they received was +admirable and the comparatively few who now doubt the truth of this +statement will come to realize it as time goes on. They will see that +the misfits, the over-wrought, stood out in their minds like men out of +alignment at parade, that they simply did not notice the thousands of +men and women whose work for them was all that their own mothers could +have asked.</p> + +<p>The following official cablegram records the state of educational, +recreation and welfare work at the end of April, 1919.</p> + +<p>"Educational activities: Roughly there are 209,000 students embraced in +this scheme. Ten thousand are at A.E.F. University at Beaune, some 7,000 +are attending French universities. 3,000 attending British. There are +roughly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>130,000 men at Post Schools, which correspond to our elementary +schools in United States. 55,000 are attending the Divisional +Educational Schools, which correspond to our High schools. In addition +there are approximately 58,000 men in specialized vocational schools +where they have full shop facilities of A.E.F.</p> + +<p>"Athletic activities: Athletic activities increasing daily in scope and +popularity. Figures for February show 6,500,000 individual participants +in games. In addition to mass athletics, unit championships are being +played in football, basketball, soccer, boxing, tennis, swimming, tug of +war, golf, track and field.</p> + +<p>"Entertainment activities: Reports of entertainment officers show +monthly attendance for A.E.F. of between eight and ten million. Moving +pictures, professional talent from United States and particularly +soldier shows being utilized in all parts of army and have done much to +take care of leisure hours of troops. Horse shows have been held in +nearly every division of A.E.F. and have proved very popular. Amount of +all this work now being carried on is little short of stupendous."</p> + +<p>The following paragraphs from a personal letter are particularly +significant as coming from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>an officer of the regular army, who when he +was in command of one of the cantonments in the United States was +genuinely alarmed lest the War Department had not lost its sense of +proportion, and was creating parlor ornaments instead of fighting men:</p> + +<p>"I served in the Army of Occupation in the Philippines and in China +after the Boxer campaign, and I want to tell you that the discipline and +<i>ésprit de corps</i> of these troops in Germany is incomparably better than +anything I saw there.</p> + +<p>"I think nothing has so contributed to this result as the welfare work +and the educational work undertaken. We have every reason to be proud of +the fact that we had people in command of the army who had the vision to +see what result this work would bring.</p> + +<p>"I took command of the —th Division in the Army of Occupation in +December, and up until the present time I never worked with a happier or +more contented lot of men. Of course they all want to go home, and we +wouldn't have much use for them if they didn't, but an intensified +military course of training in the morning, schools and athletics in the +afternoon, and study and entertainment in the evening <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>have made their +days so full that they have been perfectly contented to stay until their +boat comes in June.</p> + +<p>"This has been the experience of all the divisions up here in Germany, +and their enthusiasm, I fear, when they get home, may be taken for +pro-Germanism."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The War Department has learned so much in this great laboratory +experiment in human conduct that the impious wish sometimes arises in +one's mind that we might promptly try it all over again for the chance +of profiting by our mistakes. Thank God we can't do that, but in our +daily contact with these same men restored to their communities we can +to a certain degree carry on the work, and in so doing we can learn much +from the successes and failures of the Army.</p> + +<p>In planning for the immediate future, there are some things which we +mustn't forget. In the first place, we mustn't expect these young men +(or any humans for that matter) to be capable of remaining at concert +pitch indefinitely.</p> + +<p>For a while, in dealing with the soldier who has returned from overseas, +real ingenuity will be required to make much impression upon his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>mind. +Not only will ordinary life seem tame but, frankly, he is likely to have +been overhandled and overwelfared. If, however, we have erred in this +regard, it has been on the right side.</p> + +<p>May I venture still another suggestion, and that is to be careful and +considerate of the soldier who, despite his earnest desire, failed to +get across, and for the matter of that, of the young man who didn't get +into the Army at all. The morale of these two groups will need our +particular care.</p> + +<p>In closing, however, we should not end upon a note of warning, but +rather upon one of exultation; for the war has taught us, if it has +taught nothing else, that, given a great cause and a cross-section of +our heterogeneous American population, the resulting revelation of the +power of human endurance, human courage and human accomplishment comes +pretty near to proving objectively the divinity of man.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTE:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> An address delivered at the one hundredth anniversary of +the General Theological Seminary, New York, April 30, 1919.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>THE WAR AS A PRACTICAL TEST OF AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></h2> + + +<p>It is a difficult task to attempt to define the American scholar of +to-day. If any of you doubt it, let him try it as I have tried. +Scholarship, like many another broad term, has no sharply marked edges. +It is hard to define anything that lacks definiteness; and, after all, +the task is relatively profitless, because we all of us recognize what +is at the center of the concept. I think we all recognize that the +scholar is an expert in some particular field or fields; but he is more +than the expert as such, in that he knows enough of other matters to see +his particular specialty in its relation to things in general. He must, +to this degree at least, be a philosopher. This very general conception +of scholarship is fairly constant, but the fields which the conception +includes are broadening day by day and almost hour by hour. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>We cannot +to-day limit scholarship to the polite branches which were all that it +embodied when this Society was founded or even when this Chapter was +established. The scholar of the old-fashioned type must now accept as +his fellow the man who has helped to flatten the trajectory of the +16-inch shell, or to control the birth rate of the cootie. Later on I +shall suggest one other element which, in the light of the test which +American scholarship has undergone in the past two years, it seems to me +should now be included in our idea of the typical American scholar.</p> + +<p>We Americans are proud of being called a nation of inventors; and most +of us have made, or almost made, private discoveries of an inventional +nature which, for some reason, have never come to fruition. The +scientific boards in Washington during the war received more than sixty +thousand suggestions in some mechanical field; and I am told by those +who ought to know that of all these not more than five of those coming +from untrained minds were of any practical value. Even from the trained +minds there came, I am told, no fundamental discovery in science as a +direct result of the war conditions. Suggestions of improvements in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>detail and valuable suggestions there were in plenty, new applications +of known principles, but application of a fundamentally new idea, no. +That is only to say what we already know, that discovery is not made to +order. In each case the idea had already been born in the mind of some +intellectual pioneer and worked out by him, and some man who had the +idea in the front of his mind was at hand to apply it to the new +condition. And that means, I think, that if we met the test, we met it +with our scholars.</p> + +<p>When the test came, certain fields of scholarship naturally afforded a +better chance for immediate service than others. The chemist, for +example, had a better chance a thousand-fold than the archæologist. It +is extraordinary, however, how many of the gifts which burned bright on +the national altar came from men with some out-of-the-way specialty. +Take archæology itself, if you will. The best trench helmet developed +during the war was designed by the expert in armor from our own academic +fellowship. I am told that a very important element in the length of +time which it took to control the submarine menace was the fact that +when war broke out the science of oceanography was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>almost wholly in the +hands of the Germans. When the world's supply of cocoanut husks was +taken up for gas masks and we still needed charcoal, we had to turn for +additional sources to the tropical botanist, who might have been +expected to remain reasonably undisturbed. It remained for a scholar in +perhaps the purest branch of pure science, astronomy, to recognize the +well known fact that it is the shape of the tail of any and every moving +object, motor car or boat or what you will, and not the shape of the +head, which is the factor of chief importance in design, and to apply +this recognition to artillery problems. The re-designing of our +artillery shells under the direction of this astronomer added miles to +their range. Another astronomer applied his experience in studying the +movement of comets to solving certain problems of long-range artillery +fire where the projectile in its flight rises into the circumambient +ether.</p> + +<p>In proving the case for the American scholar, as I think we can prove +it, we should not be beguiled into the pleasant task of recording the +deeds of scholars and gentlemen when the deeds were those of the gallant +gentleman rather than of the scholar <i>per se</i>. We have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>one here in our +own academic family whose lieutenant's bars I should be as proud to wear +as the stars of any of our generals. Nor need we, I think, cite the +instances where the rigorous training of the scholar clearly laid the +foundation for great accomplishment in some general field of +administration. The man whom we can thank perhaps more than any other +for the brilliant conduct of our war finance was seventeen years ago +editor-in-chief of the <i>Columbia Law Review</i>. We may well turn with +pride, but we don't need him to prove our point, to the scholar of this +university, formerly president of this Chapter, who, from his own +talents and experience and his alert sense of scholarship in others, has +earned the place which he now holds as educational director of the +largest university in the world, the A.E.F. University at Beaune.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Our case rests, as I say, upon the direct applications of scholarship, +and not only upon their quality, but on their range. A single division +of the National Research Council, in its report for 1918, showed work of +national significance by the scholars in physics, mathematics, and +allied fields toward the solution <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>of no fewer than sixty-eight +different problems, every one of which needed for its solution men with +training and knowledge and vision. At the outset, who among us had the +slightest conception of the complexity of the adaptations to warfare of +what was known to modern scholarship? We knew that the war was mounting +into the air, but who had any realization of the adjustments which this +involved? Fifteen fundamental problems based on pure physics promptly +arose with reference to instruments for airplane operation. For example, +at night and in the clouds, the aviator must have before his eyes a dial +which will indicate the slightest deviation from his course. Seven +problems had to do with airplane photography. As the art of camouflage +advanced, for instance, color filters had to be devised for its +detection from above. Seven additional problems had to do with factors +of construction and maintenance, as fuel efficiency. Nine others +affected ballooning; and the balloon, as the war developed, came to be +of greater and greater importance. Eleven studies were in signalling: +one, for example, a device for secret daylight signalling, with a range +of five miles or more. And please remember that all these were the task +of one branch of one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>organization within the field of pure science. By +common consent, the dullest branch of physics was held to be acoustics, +but since 1914 the whole question of sound-ranging has been in the hands +of experts in acoustics. A device developed by American physicists gave +our men nineteen seconds in which to take cover from cannon fired four +miles away. The most brilliant work in this field was that of a former +student of the Columbia School of Mines.</p> + +<p>If I were to pick out one field in which the scholarly attitude has been +most brilliantly rewarded, it is that of medicine. If our army surgeons +and sanitarians had been confined to the practical family doctors, who +cannot be bothered with all this new-fangled stuff, our men would have +died like flies from disease, as they did in the Spanish-American War. +It was the laboratory man, the theorist, the highbrow if you like, who +made our health record a matter of national pride and congratulation. It +was the knowledge of a scholar, coupled with his instinctive +understanding of the human heart—neither could have accomplished the +purpose alone—which sent hundreds of shell-shocks, as they came to be +called (people used to call the condition by an uglier, if not a +shorter, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>term) back into the lines with self-respect and nerve renewed.</p> + +<p>To turn to another field, it was a real scholar, even if he were also a +dean, who, in spite of the best efforts of his practical associates to +deter him, brought order out of chaos in the most important of our war +boards through the collection and skillful presentation of statistical +data.</p> + +<p>In many cases it was the scholar whom we must thank for the pointing out +of the obvious. The early drafts rejected thousands of excellent +potential soldiers because our existing height regulations were drawn +for men of the northern European races; and the minimum height limit was +well within the normal variation of the men of southern European +ancestry, which has been so large an element in our recent immigration. +Similarly, men of science have pointed out that the length of the +marching step depends not alone on the length of the legs, but even more +on the width of the hips, a simple fact which is of real military +significance. The scholars in the Forest Products laboratories knew how +to make boxes that would not break and spill their contents on the +wharves at Hoboken or St. Nazaire, and, equally <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>important, they knew +how to educate the quartermasters to use them.</p> + +<p>The fact that in many fields we reached the limits of available +man-power meant a wonderful stimulation to the study of certain problems +affecting human welfare. Take for example the physiological aspects of +industrial fatigue. In this field an excellent theoretical start had +been made before the war, but the appeal was limited to those interested +in the individual worker. With the war, however, and the shortage of +labor, came a new and, I fear, a more potent appeal—the interest in the +product and its prompt production. The worker who collapsed could not be +replaced. Long hours or unsanitary surroundings meant spoiled material +and broken-down machinery and resultant delay. And when there was a +scholar at hand to show why this was so, you may be sure he had his day +in court.</p> + +<p>The work of the scholar has not wholly been in getting things done. +Perhaps an equally important side was in keeping impossible or +unprofitable things from being attempted. When time was of the very +essence of the whole program, the man who could say "No" and prove the +validity of his objection, performed a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>positive work of great value. +One of our associates at Columbia had a leading share in devising tests +for candidates for the flying school, which, by rejecting the unfit at +the outset, saved many lives from the time of their adoption and many, +many thousands of dollars; for the training of a flyer who cannot be +used when the time comes is a very costly piece of national extravagance +in both money and men.</p> + +<p>Our scholars did not confine their activities to the battle of +Washington. Not only as engineers and doctors, but as geologists and +geographers, as meteorologists and sanitarians, they went with the +troops to the front, and their counsel as to actual military operations +was welcomed and followed. One of them, a bachelor and doctor of this +University, died in the service in France. The scholar, like the +soldier, stood ready to step forward to fill the gap in the ranks as he +saw it, regardless of whether something more dignified might be found +for him to do. Our own Barnard, Professor of Education, took what he was +pleased to call his vacation in applying his scholarship to organizing +an educational program for the wounded men in our hospitals, as a +therapeutic measure. Being a scholar and not merely an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>expert, he saw +the broad human aspect of his specialty; that the first thing to do with +the man who is blinded, or otherwise maimed, is to make him realize that +it is worth while to get well; that he can have a life which is worth +living; that if his old job is no longer possible, there are others for +which he can be trained. One of America's most distinguished +philosophical chemists settled down to the humble but very essential +problem of making mixed flours rise and bake with a crust—and solved +it. The war services of a past President of this Chapter, now, alas, no +longer with us, and those of our present President have been as useful +as they have been inconspicuous.</p> + +<p>The need for the scholar was not only qualitative, but quantitative. But +for the general distribution of chemical knowledge in France and +England, and the presence of men capable of promptly applying that +knowledge to combat the gas attacks launched by the Germans, the war +would have been lost before we could possibly have rendered the +slightest assistance; and on our side of the Atlantic when the armistice +was signed, there were two thousand trained chemists engaged in the +problems of gas warfare alone. Our country, in a word, needed not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>only +to have some men with the requisite training, but men enough to meet +simultaneously many needs in many fields, and these men were drawn in +large measure from our academic faculties. While one must not press the +identity between the scholar and the professor too hard—for a number of +reasons—the fact remains that the teaching profession provided the main +reservoir from which the country drew. One of my friends in the Chemical +Warfare Service has summarized the relation between the academic scholar +and that branch of the army activity. Both chiefs of the Chemical +Service Station were college professors, one of them a member of this +Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Of the fourteen heads of the Research +Division, eight were college professors. It was the college professors +who made fundamental improvements in gas masks on the one hand, and who +devised new gases to test the German masks on the other.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>As a nation, we did not realize at the outset, as Germany did, the +importance of the man who knows, and of knowing who he is and where he +is; and here, perhaps, lay our most fundamental unpreparedness. What +this cost us may be judged from a single instance. A code <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>message from +Germany directing the dismantling of the German ships lying in our ports +was intercepted. If we had known that there was a professor of English +in the University of Chicago who, in the pursuit of his medieval +researches, had developed the power of reading ciphers almost at sight, +that cable from Germany could have been promptly deciphered, we could +have forestalled the sabotage, and something like six months in the use +of these ships for the transport of our troops and munitions could have +been gained.</p> + +<p>The job of getting the man who knew into the right niche was not an easy +one. The scholars could not all be spared; for, after all, education and +research are essential industries, and, fortunately for our institutions +of learning, for our reviews and scientific agencies, and fortunately +for the country as a whole, all of our scholars did not rush immediately +into government work. The less thrilling task of keeping the lamps +burning in our lighthouses was never more important than during the +stormy days which we have just gone through. Furthermore, the scholar is +a modest person, though he has his human vanities, as we all know who +have seen our colleagues in uniform; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>but usually some one had to know +about him and invite him to his place, a very sharp contrast to the +business men and lawyers who came down to Washington by the trainload to +impress us with their capacity to do any job which involved a commission +of properly high degree.</p> + +<p>In general, I should say that the individuals in the universities met +the test better than the institutions themselves. The latter did not, it +seems to me, as institutions, grasp the situation. Very few studied the +question of the assignment of their specialists as a problem in +conservation as well as in publicity; and as far as the use of their +facilities in the training of soldiers and sailors is concerned, the War +Department and the Navy Department had literally to teach them how to +meet the war conditions. Such help as came from organized bodies of +scholars came rather from the learned societies than from the academic +groups.</p> + +<p>Then there was a further difficulty, particularly among the younger men, +though not wholly among them. The expert's job, and hence inclusively +the scholar's job, is relatively safe so far as the immediate risk of +death is concerned, though not the risk of shortening life through +overwork. One Columbia man, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>well over the draft age, told me frankly +that he would gladly give up an important public office he held for the +privilege of fighting with his hands, but he could not be tempted by an +opportunity to fight with his head. Through this same impulse many and +many a man attempted to conceal his special knowledge in order that he +might fight in the line. The Army Committee on Classification of +Personnel, which was in itself a beautiful example of scholarship in +practical application, was able, however, in most instances to pluck out +the expert from the line and set him, whether he was willing or not, at +the task for which he was particularly adapted and particularly needed.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>What, from the point of view of the non-scholar, can be said as to the +general usefulness of the men and women (for the women did their share) +who came forward or were brought forward to take this trial by fire on +behalf of American scholarship? First of all, the scholar must be a real +scholar; he must have the natural ability and the long and rigorous +training necessary for accurate observation, and observation of the kind +which, if I may be forgiven a most unscholarly metaphor, includes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>the +ability to distinguish the blue chips from the white; his deductions +must be relentless, and his inductions must be luminous. That is asking +a good deal, and it would be enough if his dealings were to be with +other scholars or with scholars in the making. The papers of a leisurely +recluse can be dug out by others from the even more deliberately +published proceedings of learned societies, even as the author has dug +out those of his predecessors, and ultimately the practical application +of his discoveries will be made. In national emergency, however, this +process will not suffice. The scholar must descend from his tower; he +must, if he is to serve effectively, learn to think to order and to do +it rapidly, to deal with all sorts and conditions of men; he must bear +with their amazing ignorances and profit by their equally amazing +knowledge of things of which he is ignorant. He must know the art of +team play. The war has brought out a new type of scholarship, or at any +rate has developed it to such an extent that its implications are new, +and that is the unselfish coöperation of experts to meet a given and +usually an immediately pressing need. The development of the Liberty +motor furnishes a good example <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>of the results of such coöperative +effort. It seems to me that the most important single lesson which our +scholars can learn from the experience of the two past years is the +importance of this team play in scholarship, and not only team play with +other scholars, but team play with those who have the equally valuable +and perhaps even rarer gift of getting things done, who perhaps deserve +the title of scholars in the control of time and space. The scholars who +made good were those who had had not only the training and temperament +for research, but the training and temperament for working with other +people. The scholarship of the man who from self-centeredness or from a +mistaken absorption in his specialty lacked the art of dealing with his +fellow men was likely to prove a sterile scholarship, and in most cases +a useless scholarship in the day of national need.</p> + +<p>One of the most dramatic things about the war was the speeding up of +supply and transport under the strong hand of the man who had brought +the Panama Canal to completion. General Goethals was no administrative +theorist. He was willing to try anything and anybody once, but he was +prompt in rejecting what did not promptly accomplish his purpose. An +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>engineer of General Goethals' distinction can be regarded as a scholar +in his particular field; but the point I want to make is that during his +service as Quartermaster-General, when officers of the regular army and +over-night majors, as they were called, presidents of manufacturing +plants, bankers and lawyers, were passing in what seemed to be an almost +unbroken procession through his office, he retained just two men in his +inner circle from first to last, and both were academic persons. Herbert +Hoover surrounded himself with scholars, entomologists, statisticians +and public health men. He did not always use them for their specialties, +but he evidently liked the type. The great welfare societies did the +same, and the list of academic men whom they used makes an impressive +total.</p> + +<p>These instances are typical of a very general success among scholars in +coöperating effectively and helpfully with eminently practical men. This +may be because the scholar has been trained in a form of competition +which the so-called practical man lacked. He is used to having his work +wiped out by some discovery of a rival, and having to begin afresh. He +is used to a checking of his work by his fellows <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>which, if of a +different nature, is no less relentless than the war-time check in the +toll of human lives. The man of high reputation in business often failed +because he had learned to measure success and his own competence only in +terms of dividends, and in the new test he found his measuring-rod worse +than useless.</p> + +<p>Our scholars of the coöperative type not only pursued their researches, +but they got their military associates into the habit of thinking in +terms of scholarship. One of their most useful accomplishments, +initiated by a Doctor of Philosophy of this University, was the +organization of Thursday evening conferences for the discussion of the +new scientific and technical problems facing the Army and Navy. This +furnished a nucleus for the exchange of ideas between the different +research groups, both here and abroad; for scholarship was mobilized and +utilized in France, England, and Italy, as well as here, and our Allies +laid their scientific discoveries before us with the greatest loyalty. +At these conferences their reports were discussed and digested and +applied, instead of being pigeon-holed at the War College, as I fear +might have been otherwise the case. It was as a result of one of these +conferences that a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>member of this Chapter, acting on a hint which came +from a French report, was largely instrumental in developing a method of +submarine detection through sound-waves of a particular type, which, +though it came too late to be of service in the war, may serve in peace +to relieve the greatest terror of the mariner, the danger of collision +in darkness or fog with sister vessel or iceberg or derelict. A potent +factor in breaking down the barriers and delays of departmental +jealousies and bureaucratic tradition all along the line was the +free-masonry of the company of scholars in Washington.</p> + +<p>It must not be forgotten that our scholar in war worked under two +powerful stimuli, neither of them operative under ordinary conditions. +Although he was out of his accustomed setting, working with strange +people and at strange tasks, nevertheless the realization of the +national need and the joy of feeling an identification with the forces +facing the adversary tended to produce that fine frenzy which enables a +man to do better than he knows how. Then, for the first time in history, +the scholar had unlimited funds. It is an interesting subject for +speculation as to how he can ever go back to the limits of academic +appropriations. It is to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>be feared that in many cases he will not, but +will turn to industrial enterprises instead. If, however, there was an +unlimited supply of funds, there was a corresponding deficiency in time, +and the scholar who could not speed up to meet the new conditions had +little chance to make his mark. The men who failed in war because they +could not grasp the significance of the time factor may, however, still +be eminently useful in peace. On the other hand, the training which some +of our scholars received in meeting another war-time condition is likely +to have an important influence upon the relation of scholarship to +industry. Many a scholar found for the first time that to meet a given +condition a beautiful laboratory solution may be no solution at all, +that the answer, to be effective, must meet the peculiar condition of +quantity production.</p> + +<p>The merit of the Liberty engine, of which I have already spoken, lies +not alone in the excellence of its design, admirable as that is, but in +the fact that it is so constructed that we could produce fifteen hundred +of them in a single week. Or, to take another example, in 1914 we made +all together eighteen hundred field glasses in this country. Last +winter, thanks to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>the coöperation of the scholars in the chemistry of +glass and in the field of optics on the one hand, and of the experts in +quantity production on the other, we were making thirty-five hundred +pairs of field glasses each week. There are many other adaptations of +scholarship to industry that are awaiting similar practical solutions. +One of our most distinguished scholars in physics has said publicly that +the day is past when one can defend any distinction between pure and +applied science. One might as well try to distinguish between pure and +applied virtue.</p> + +<p>I said at the outset that I would venture later on an enlargement of the +conception of the American scholar, in the light of what the past two +years have made so clear. The scholar himself as well as those of us who +are not scholars, needs, I think, to get a somewhat broader conception +of the term; to develop it from its present popular connotation so that +the attributes which come to one's mind will no longer be the static and +selfish, but rather the dynamic and social. Emerson, in his essay on the +American Scholar, seems to have some prophetic glimpse of this broader +conception. He says, for example, that "action is with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>scholar +subordinate, but it is essential; that without it, he is not yet man; +that the true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as +a loss of power"; and elsewhere, "that a great soul will be strong to +live, as well as strong to think." The old idea of the scholar was the +recluse, the individual; the new, it seems to me, should be one of a +company of builders, each bringing to the common task, for the general +welfare, his training and craft, his knowledge and ideas, to combine +them with the gifts which his fellows are bringing.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Thus far almost all my modern instances have been taken from the realms +of natural science. I need not remind you, however, that although +science has tremendously broadened the range of scholarship, +nevertheless the scholarship which is a practical asset is not and never +will be limited to natural science. The record of the past two years has +many an example of the essentially important work of scholars in other +fields. The records are not so clear-cut, the results are perhaps more +often negative; but the work was done and it counted. In the field of +public information our American <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>scholars in the political sciences did +excellent work under the direction of a Doctor of Philosophy of this +University, and their record for fairness and sanity makes an enviable +contrast with the pathetic propaganda of the German intellectuals. +Similarly, the work of our Columbia scholars of the Legislative Drafting +Bureau proved of great value in formulating and, perhaps more important, +in discouraging legislation.</p> + +<p>In general, however, I think we ought to face the fact squarely that our +scholarship in man's relations with his fellow men, in his understanding +of himself and his fellows as contrasted with his mastery of physical +things, cannot claim so clear-cut a decision. Even in science we should +not set too great store by ourselves. Professor, late Colonel, Millikan +writes: "The contribution of the United States in research and +development lines was less, far less in proportion to our resources and +population, than that of England or France, and this in spite of the far +heavier strain under which they were laboring." And yet, with us, +science was better mobilized, better equipped, and can make a better +showing than the humanities. Part of this can be readily explained by +the statement <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>that preparation for war is after all engineering on a +huge scale. But we must not prove too much if we are to profit by the +lesson. For example, the war found us utterly unprepared in +foreign-language knowledge; and we are still unprepared. How many real +Americans, I don't mean recent immigrants, but men and women with our +traditions and our point of view, can speak Russian? How many can speak +the languages of the Near East or Far East?</p> + +<p>Excellent work has been done by individual philosophers, economists, and +sociologists in labor questions, in welfare work, on the war-time trade +and industrial boards; but as a whole our scholars in these fields did +not dominate the situation as did the men of science in theirs. Of +course, their task was infinitely harder. For one thing, though we may +be ready to confess our ignorance of calculus or colloidal chemistry or +thermo-dynamics, we all believe in the validity of our off-hand +judgments in politics and morals, and indeed in all the springs of human +conduct. Yet when all allowances are made, the fact remains that there +is a scholarship in these matters and we have American scholars in them, +but that with distinguished exceptions these professionals permitted the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>man in the street or the man in the editor's chair, or in Congress, or +in the Cabinet, to proclaim his amateur pronouncement and to get away +with it. Indeed, I will go further and say that not a few who know or +ought to know that it is not necessary to be intolerant in order to be +patriotic seemed to set their knowledge upon this point at one side. In +war time it is a matter for the scholar's judgment and conscience to +decide whether it is wise to attempt a leadership which at the moment +will be misunderstood and probably ineffective, possibly even dangerous, +because of the reaction, to the cause he has at heart; or to bide his +time in silence, awaiting a more suitable time to be heard. But I submit +that he is sinning against the light when he joins in the hue and cry of +the untrained and the half-trained. The war has given the natural +scientist his chance, and he has profited thereby. In the years to come +the test will, I think, shift to the scholars in the human sciences. The +crises of the future will have to do with problems of human conduct +rather than of the control of physical things; and, as these crises +come, our scholars in human relations should be more ready for the call +to mobilize.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>In practically every case the instances that I have given of the +successful tests of our scholarship involve the work of a member of Phi +Beta Kappa or of the sister society, Sigma Xi; and I therefore may be +permitted to say a word more directly to our younger members of the +society of those seeking the philosophy of life, to our Columbia +scholars in the making. In my time, which, by the way, was just +twenty-one years ago, a man who wanted to live the life of a scholar was +practically limited to teaching as the means of making his living. The +result in the way of incompetent and halfhearted teaching we all know. +Let me say to you of to-day that unless you want to teach, there is no +reason under heaven why you should do so. There are plenty of other +means of earning an honest living. The scholar is not nowadays limited +to the academic halls. We have scholars of the first quality not only in +special research institutions, but in government bureaus and in +industrial organizations. The men in government service who could be +spared from their other responsibilities for war work made an excellent +war record. On the other hand, we want to remember that the real +teacher, whether in the faculty or out of it, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>has a tremendous +advantage in the art of presentation. During the war the effectiveness +of our scholar teachers was well tested by an entirely new set of +pupils, pupils sometimes with eagles or stars on their shoulders, or in +the civil field, captains of industry, clad in the glittering armor of a +big business reputation.</p> + +<p>Nowadays one cannot be a scholar in general. One has to have some +specialty. As to what that specialty shall be in terms of usefulness to +the community, I think I have given you examples enough to show that the +range is almost unlimited. I had planned to sum up this by a brief +record of the discovery and application to war purposes of helium; but I +find that one of my own students in Columbia College, now a member of +the Geological Survey, has beaten me out; and you can find the whole +story in the May issue of the <i>National Geographic Magazine</i>. I cannot +resist, however, a summary of the steps. First, the astronomer, just +about the time this chapter was established, finds a new line in the +solar spectrum. Thirty years later, the geologist comes upon an unusual +stone and turns to a great chemist for its analysis, with the consequent +recognition of helium as a mundane element. About the same time <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>comes +its identification as one of the newly recognized ingredients of the +air, and the study of its properties. Then a Kansas chemist discovers +its presence in some natural gas about which he was consulted because it +would not burn properly. Then comes the war with its incendiary bullet +and the need of a non-inflammable content for balloons and dirigibles. +Then the coöperation of physicist, engineer, and geologist—Canadian and +American—makes helium available for this purpose. Before these +researches helium cost $1700 a cubic foot and was obtainable only in +Germany. The present price is 10 cents a cubic foot, and it is falling. +The importance of all this for peace is very great. In these days of +airplane hops we are forgetting that a Zeppelin made the trip from +Bulgaria to what should have been German East Africa with medicines and +ammunition. The Germans having disappeared in the meantime, the Zeppelin +turned around and came back, making a continuous voyage of several +thousand miles.</p> + +<p>But do not forget that not all scholars made good in the great test. Let +me sum up what I have already said. In the first place, to be useful the +scholarship must be sound. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>near-scholar, the man who took the +short-cut in preparation, proved to be a positive danger. The mere +expert in some narrow field, the man who did not realize the +implications of what he knew, was relatively useless. A man to succeed +had to be intense without being narrow. Even among the sound scholars, +the men who really knew, the isolated and insulated individual could +very rarely make much headway. It was the open-minded scholar, the maker +and keeper of friends, who got his chance, the scholar whose learning +was to him a living thing, not necessarily to be displayed in the market +place, and never for the sake of the display, but on the other hand +never wrapped in a napkin and buried in the earth.</p> + +<p>Will the scholar, now that his practical worth has been tested and +proved, be content to slip back into relative obscurity; or will he, on +the other hand, be tempted too far into the limelight and thereby lose +those very qualities which gave him his value? Will he be satisfied with +positions of leadership rather than leadership itself, which may be a +very different thing? It is largely for you young men and young women of +the rising generation of scholars to say.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTE:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> An address delivered before the New York Delta of Phi Beta +Kappa at Columbia University upon the fiftieth anniversary of the +establishment of the Chapter, June 3, 1919.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> + +<hr /> +<br /> +<h2>WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></h2> + + +<p>I am going to try to select three or four general fields in which we +Americans have had a chance to learn lessons of permanent value as the +result of our war experience. Then I shall try to apply these to what +seems to me the most typical specimen of the best in American life, a +great American University; and finally, I shall try to apply them to the +situation which faces you young men and women of the graduating class as +you step out to take your places in the world. And in so doing I'm going +to look deliberately on the bright side. There are troubles enough in +the world to worry and depress us, and we have to face them, but let us +face them with a confidence that is justified in the light of the +examples of man's endurance, of his courage, of his possibilities of +accomplishment, which it has been our privilege to witness within the +lifetime of this academic generation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>What have we learned? In the first place, we have learned that as a +nation we possess the power to see a big job through, and we possess it +because we have the qualities of youth—enthusiasm, learning capacity, +energy, elasticity, initiative—the pioneering spirit. We have the +shortcomings of youth also—impatience, superficiality, improvidence, +cock-sureness—but when the test came we managed to strengthen our +virtues and to a large extent to overcome our failings.</p> + +<p>The various stocks that have emigrated to our shores have come as +successive waves of pioneers, of men to whom new and unfamiliar +conditions serve as an incentive rather than a discouragement, and it is +the persistence of this pioneering spirit, essentially a youthful +spirit, which has had much to do with our success.</p> + +<p>What single group made the finest impression in the great war? I think +we will agree that it was the American doughboy. As one saw him in +France he was absolutely youth incarnate, and he is a cross section of +our complex population. If anyone still doubts that all of these stocks, +the Teutonic included, have been willing to do their share even at the +risk or cost of life, let him read any of the lists of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>battle +casualties or the list of honors for heroic conduct and he will have the +best kind of proof. Let us remember in this connection that nearly +one-fourth of our drafted men couldn't speak and write English +adequately when they entered the Army. In spite of a number of unsightly +pieces of slag, which are either floating on the surface or have sunk to +the bottom, the great national melting pot has evidently done its work +well.</p> + +<p>Our heterogeneous immigration, our enormous national resources, which +have tempted us to live on capital rather than on interest, our +prosperity, have made us neither fat nor flabby. We now know that as a +people we don't really care about money or the money game if we are +shown some other game better worth playing; that selfishness and luxury +drop away as if by magic when they interfere with the keener +satisfactions of giving one's self. Even for us stay-at-homes, the +Liberty Loan people, Mr. Hoover, the Red Cross and other welfare workers +were on hand to show us how to play the better game. I don't need to +remind you of the details, nor that in spite of human grumbling and talk +of sacrifice, in the bottom of our hearts we all enjoyed the process.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>In the second place, we have learned that to see the job through we need +all of the nation, men and women, not merely the profession of arms and +the mysterious powers of finance—we need all of everyone. We need them +not as individuals but as a team, and we have learned that we can +develop team play.</p> + +<p>Our easiest jobs were the raising of our men and our money; our hardest, +the moulding of the whole into an organic unity. Just as our young men +by the millions took their place in the line when the bugle blew, older +men by the tens of thousands left their private affairs to get along as +best they might, and regardless of political affiliations or personal +convenience, found place for themselves in the administrative army. And +they were ably seconded by the women. Hundreds of men in key positions +have gladly borne witness to the share which their secretaries and their +other women associates played in bringing about the needed results.</p> + +<p>The first days of the war were days of whirling confusion, colored by +glowing forecasts. Then followed months of experimentation, by trial and +error, of hope deferred by long delays, of well meant but none the less +embarrassing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>internal rivalries, of sudden spurts. Later came the days +of last autumn, when the whole great machine was throbbing rhythmically +and steadily, with only a minor "knock" here and there—a sure +indication to the watchful enemy, who had had more than a taste of what +the machine could produce, that the game was up; and finally the +eleventh of November and the order to reverse the engines.</p> + +<p>It ought to be evident from our experience that for any great enterprise +we need all the young men and the young women, and all the older ones +who are still young in heart. We need to know who they are, where they +are, what they can do, and we need to touch them at every point; for not +only do we need them all, but we need all of each one of them. We should +never again face a great national crisis with nearly one-third of our +men of military age unfit for hard physical work. We need campaigns of +physical education and social hygiene, and we need to apply the lessons +in human salvage which the army has learned during the war. But we need +more than each individual and all of him. We must see to it that the +individual star, of whatever magnitude, is subordinated to the team play +of the group. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>And team play means more than energy and "pep." It means +a marshalling of the old fashioned and homely virtues of courtesy, +deference and consideration.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>In the third place, we have learned that to accomplish a great result we +need the leadership of those who know and who know vividly and +constructively. Our experience has been that in certain fields, finance, +science, manufacturing in quantity production, medicine, we had a supply +of those who knew. In other fields, in intimate knowledge of foreign +conditions and foreign languages for example, we had not.</p> + +<p>At first we didn't know where our leaders were, and in many cases we +began by following false prophets. The value of one man with training, +brains and persistence can be shown by a single example: There was a man +who answered these qualifications connected with the Council of National +Defence, not in a very exalted position. He was the first in all this +country to see that the army program and the shipping program did not +fit. It took him a long time to convince the two groups of overworked, +harried officials that neither could play <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>the game alone; that the +closest coöperation was necessary. He had no access to the records, but +he finally managed to build up a convincing statement out of the shreds +of information which he gathered here and there, and at last he +succeeded in getting everyone concerned into the attitude of wanting to +face the facts. Everyone would have had to face them sooner or later, +but without the devotion and leadership of this one man, it would have +been only as the result of a very serious dislocation of function.</p> + +<p>One field in which the right leadership has been most brilliantly +rewarded is that of medicine. Just consider what we have done in this +field: The success of the anti-typhoid injections; the reduction in +dysenteric diseases due to chlorination of drinking water; the +encouraging fight against cerebro-spinal meningitis and pneumonia; the +identification of trench fever, and the practical freedom from typhus. +As to wounds, a tetanus antitoxin which has made lock-jaw almost a +negligible disease; a serum against gas gangrene; the Carrel-Dakin +method of chemical sterilization of wounds; the splinting of fractures +on the battle field and overhead extension apparatus in the hospital. To +quote Simon Flexner, "The entire psychology <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>of the wounded men was +altered, the wards made cheerful and happy, pain abolished, infection +controlled, and recovery hastened by means of the new or improved +surgical and mechanical measures put into common use."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The fourth lesson of which I wish to speak is that a high aim and ideal +is what counts most of all, what lifts the individual up from +selfishness and sloth. To bind the country together and to make the +transformation which still seems miraculous, we had a noble national +aim, a complete dedication to the task before us, an utter absence of +any selfish or self-seeking factor in the whole enterprise. The conduct +of our soldiers, their submission to a discipline to which most of them +were completely unused was, I think, in a very large measure due to the +recognition of this aim. We recognized it as a nation and we recognized +it in one another. The standard of contact set by our soldiers during +the days of conflict is unique in military history. Whole divisions went +for months without a single court-martial. The reason was, more than +anything else, the national assumption that they would give a good +account of themselves and the fact that they felt themselves in +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>training for the championship, and no man wanted to miss his chance on +the battlefield for the sake of a selfish indulgence.</p> + +<p>Some of the experiments in conduct tried in the American Expeditionary +Forces were extraordinary in their success. The leave areas, an immense +enterprise, were run on the basis of absolute freedom to the enlisted +man. He lived in the best hotels in Europe and amused himself in casinos +where crowned heads had been in the habit of gambling away the money of +their subjects. He had no roll calls, no taps, no officers in sight, no +military machinery whatever. He arose when he pleased, either before or +after his breakfast; he ate and drank when he pleased, and he stayed out +as late as he pleased. The physical and moral effect of this absolute +change from the military régime was a very interesting and instructive +phenomenon, but that is not the point I wish to make. Out of the +thousands and thousands of men who were sent to these leave areas, there +was hardly a single case in which a man abused the trust which was put +upon him or failed to turn up on time to go back to the grind of +military duty. This could never have been done with soldiers of another +type, with soldiers lacking an ideal.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>Someone has recently written that fine minds have been finely touched by +the war, and base minds basely. He might have added that wise minds have +been wisely touched, and foolish minds foolishly. In general, I think it +may fairly be said that when the appeal was to the finest in a man's +character, the result was correspondingly fine.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>These, it seems to me, are the four main things we have learned, or at +any rate we have had a chance to learn. First, that we are a real +nation, potentially strong with the strength of youth. Second, that to +fulfill our mission, every man and woman and all of every such +individual is an object of national concern; that we must be mobilized +and we must continue our lessons in team play. We have still plenty to +learn in this field. Third, that we must have and must recognize the +leadership of those who know, which, after all, is the great test of a +democracy. Fourth, that to bring out the best that is in us, as +individuals and as a nation, we must have an aim, high, clear-cut and +clearly understood. If, now, I attempt to apply these four lessons which +we have had a chance to learn, to educational <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>conditions, and +particularly to university conditions, it will be for three reasons: The +first is the general wisdom of confining one's remarks to things he +knows something about. The second, that there is no single institution +more characteristic of the best in our American life than a great +American University. And there is this third reason, that if we had not +had a supply of young men with the stamp of the American college upon +them, we could never have met the call for officers, for nearly a +quarter of a million of them. I am told that the Germans were prepared +to admit and to discount our wealth in money, in materials and in man +power, but they looked forward confidently to a complete failure on our +part in training officers to lead our men in battle. Of course, all the +citizen officers who made good records were not college men, but the +college trained citizens were the men who set the pace and made the +standard.</p> + +<p>It was Pitt who said, "The atrocious crime of being a young man I shall +attempt neither to palliate nor to deny." Nor should a university seek +to palliate or to deny the charge of being a place of resort for youth. +A university, it seems to me, should be a place where the primary object +is not the repression of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>youthful exuberance nor the correction of +youthful failings (though both may be necessary on occasion), but +rather, a place for the encouragement of the great and vital qualities +of youth—enthusiasm, energy, power of acquisition, sensitiveness of +impression. It is the place where the older members of the community +have the best chance to stay young. The university should be essentially +a company of enthusiasts, of pioneers. There is a frontier for every +worker to clear—no matter how narrow or how wide his horizon may be. In +a university there is no proper place, among faculty or students, for +the disillusioned, the cynical, the defeatist.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now we come to the application of the second lesson, the lesson of +mobilization, of team play. In the first place, no university is alive +where mobilization is limited to the Recorder's office. In a live +institution, regent, professor, student, janitor, each is a part of the +game and must feel that he is. He must feel that in its administration +the institution has learned the great lesson of direct and human +personal contact. Science, among all its triumphs, cannot include any +device for conveying a message from mind to mind or from heart to heart +half <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>so good as the human voice and the human eye. Within the faculty, +this element of human coöperation should be reflected by the vitality of +the organism rather than by the complexity of the organization, which +may not be vital at all. Each member must feel that the general repute +is safeguarded by honest and intelligent standards, honestly and +intelligently administered. The university, like the country at large, +must make itself responsible for all of each and every student, his +bodily condition, for example, just as directly as his mental.</p> + +<p>It will be recalled that one of my justifications for applying war +experiences to university conditions was the share which the college and +university men had in building up our supply of officers. If we study +why the college men made good officers, and make allowance for the fact +that it is the kind of man who goes to college who is likely to make a +good officer anyway, and all the other allowances we can think of, we +can't dodge the conclusion that there is something outside of the +college curriculum which has been an important factor in bringing about +the results. On the other hand, important as the other factors are, the +curriculum has had its share, and it is in my judgment a leading and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>not always an adequately recognized share. The comfortable theory that +once he has settled down to something important the college +ne'er-do-well will suddenly blossom forth into a competent leader of men +didn't work out in practice. It may have happened here and there, but it +didn't happen as a general rule. In the fighting line, it was very +generally the man with a sound academic record, not necessarily the Phi +Beta Kappa lad, but the good scholar and active college citizen, the man +who had taken the trouble to learn things and learn people, who made the +best record. I naturally watched with particular interest the records of +my own old students at Columbia, and I know that this is so.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>It is a significant fact, however, for those of us who are interested in +the welfare of college boys and girls, that the United States government +deliberately built up what was to all intents and purposes an +undergraduate college life for the young men of the army, with +athletics, dances, dramatics, singing, and all the rest, even including +opportunities for reading and study. Even the most hardened of regular +officers, who at the first, I fear, regarded this as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>some of the +civilian foolishness with which all soldiers have to contend, came to +see that the program was a vital factor in building up such a body of +fighting men as they had never seen. And this is only another way of +saying that if you want to use the human machine for any purpose, you +must concern yourself with the whole of it. Human nature does not come +in air-tight compartments.</p> + +<p>President Wilson coined a phrase which has thoroughly gone the rounds +when he said that the side-shows of college life should not overshadow +nor distract from the entertainment in the main tent. We all agree to +this. But I think we are more inclined than when the words were spoken +to urge that the side-shows, properly and intelligently subordinated, +should be under the same management as the main tent. The army has tried +the experiment on a large scale and it has worked well. In February last +there were in France and on the Rhine six million and a half individual +participants in athletic games, ten million attendants on +entertainments, nearly a quarter of a million students.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>None of the lessons which the Army has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>learned are more significant +than those which have to do with mobilization and classification. The +activities of the Provost Marshal General, of the Committee on +Classification and Personnel, in coöperation with the Committee on +Education, furnish the best record of large scale human engineering in +the new science of personnel of which we have any record, either in this +country or, I think, elsewhere.</p> + +<p>A university like this one is an army, and not such a small army either, +judging by peacetime standards. The United States found that it was +worth while, indeed that it was absolutely necessary in organizing its +forces, to find out everything it could about every man in the army, +what he needed physically to increase his efficiency; what he needed to +keep him interested and out of mischief; what he should have in the way +of training—based on what he knew already and based on careful mental +tests—to make him of the greatest usefulness; whether he had the will +to win, and if not, whether anything could be done to get it into him.</p> + +<p>In a word, the United States wanted to know just what each man's +possibilities were. Was he officer material or non-com material? Should +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>he go into the line or one of the special corps—or to the labor +battalion? As a result of this program, the Army succeeded in finding a +place that counted for 98 per cent of the drafted men.</p> + +<p>Now I realize that a university can't do all these things with its army +in just the way the government can. It can't casually transfer a man +from engineering to psychology, nor a girl from philosophy to +cookery—or <i>vice versa</i>—no matter how desirable such a transfer might +be for the individual and the community. But it can do a great deal more +than it now does in finding out about all its members, informing them of +their strength and weaknesses, in seeing that every student gets a +chance to enjoy in so far as possible the high privileges of youth, and +to get a helping hand over the bumps in the road, which also come with +youth. Every student ought to have the opportunity to round out his +character and his capacities. It ought not to be left to chance that any +student gets the best personal contacts for him or her with faculty and +fellow-students, the best opportunities for learning team play. Every +student ought to leave with some definite aim in life, and if possible +an aim high enough to be an ideal that is worth working for.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>A university is not doing its full duty if its athletics and social life +are limited to those who need these the least; if its alumni are +regarded merely as fillers of the grandstands or recipients of oratory, +and possible sources of pecuniary support. The alumni are the best +possible sources of keeping the faculty informed as to what the world +really wants in the way of trained men and women, and, for the students, +of information, suggestions, and jobs, both temporary and permanent.</p> + +<p>I realize that many of these things are now done here and elsewhere, but +in the light of what we have learned from the experience of the +University of Uncle Sam, I am sure that our American universities and +colleges have hardly scratched the surface of what they might do and +what, I think, they will ultimately do in the realm of human +engineering. Nearly all educational institutions merely follow what they +find the leaders are doing, and in this field there is an opportunity, I +am sure, for real leadership.</p> + +<p>We know now that men and women can be measured by impersonal tests and +that it is practicable to put aside the material which it is either +impossible to fashion in the academic mould, or for which, even if the +job is possible, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>the expense in wear and tear is entirely beyond the +value of the result to be obtained. To be specific, why shouldn't we +have an intelligence test of candidates for the degree of Doctor of +Philosophy, just as we had a physical and psychological examination for +candidates for the flying schools?</p> + +<p>I don't mean that we should leap from one illogical position clear +across the road into another. Mental measurements are not yet an exact +science, and a man of moderate ability, with a will to succeed, may be a +better academic investment than his more brilliant brother who lacks +that quality; but, by pruning very sparingly (one does not have to chop +down a tree to prune it) the saving in time and energy will be enormous.</p> + +<p>Fundamentally the human relationships are what count, the qualities +leading to team play and coöperation, and away from isolation and its +ills. This means that if a faculty is to exercise its leadership, it +must know the student body, it must maintain and develop points of human +touch. Impersonal tests, impersonal records, all that modern practice +and modern science can teach us we must have, but these must be used +only as the framework for what is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>after all the fundamental thing, +direct human contact between teacher and teacher, teacher and student, +and student and student.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Now as to leadership, and in a university we can identify the leaders +with the teachers, there is no doubt, I think, that the teachers' +profession comes out of the war in a higher place than it went in, and +the scholar goes back to his work with a feeling of confidence in +himself in view of his record in competition and comparison with men in +other callings. I venture to predict that we shall hear a good deal less +frequently in the future the old gibe that the man who could do things +did them and the man who couldn't, taught them. The teachers made good, +not only because of their scholarship, but because of their personality. +I think this experience of the last two years is going to accelerate +greatly the movement which had already started of turning to the +academic world for the man who can do things and do them with other +people. Entirely apart from the contrasts in income, the sheer fun of +executive work, with plenty of money to spend on what you want to get +done, is a pretty strong temptation for a man with a heavy teaching +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>schedule and an annual department appropriation of say $75. Both the +regular army officers who have made conspicuously good, and the scholars +of the coöperative type who have made conspicuously good, are being +actively bidden for by bankers and manufacturers and all sorts of +people. Neither profession can compete on the purely financial side with +these tempters and, in order to hold their first-rate men, they will +each have to make some greater contribution in the things that money +alone can't buy.</p> + +<p>Both in the nation and in our republics of letters and science, we must +learn to distinguish more clearly between the power that comes with +knowledge, and the ability to talk about things. It was very interesting +to watch in Washington the gradual substitution of the man with the +latter quality by the man with the former in positions of +responsibility, and I am going to confess that, in the early days, some +of the conferences which it was my privilege or my duty to attend, +reminded me for all the world of certain faculty meetings, in which +gentlemen without definite knowledge of the matter in hand were +discussing at considerable length what they were pleased to call +principles, but which were really off-hand impressions.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>I think that in their service to the university and to the nation, the +scholars may well profit by the demonstration that it was not only the +man who knew his subject, but the man who knew how to deal with his +fellow men, who was likely to make his impression. Isn't there such a +thing as academic provincialism, even within the walls of a man's own +university, certainly as between institution and institution, which can +be remedied by the encouragement of these social and coöperative sides +of the scholar's character? It seems to me that we all should face a +fundamental extension in the definition of a scholar, away from the +individual, the selfish, out to the social and constructive.</p> + +<p>In our educational institutions scholarship has three functions: To +broaden the field of existing knowledge, and the war has shown us that +every field has its valuable practical applications; to train the coming +generation of experts, and any country needs not only a handful of +distinguished leaders but a great body of well-trained men and women +who, when the emergency arises, stand ready to meet it; and last but not +least, to inspire a recognition of what scholarship is and a respect for +it in the minds of the general <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>students, few of whom, by the most +generous stretch of the imagination, can be regarded as scholars +themselves, but whose influence in their generation throughout the +country is a very important factor. Our nation needs a respect for +expert knowledge and it needs a respect for intelligence, and our +college graduates can do more than any other group to develop this +respect.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>We have taken up three of our four lessons as these affect the +university: the emphasis on youth, the need of mobilization and team +play, and the need of leadership. There remains the fourth factor, a +high, clear-cut aim.</p> + +<p>The most serious charge against the American undergraduate in the past +has been the lack of a sense of responsibility. We now know from their +war records that the sense of responsibility lay latent in thousands of +these boys and was only awaiting an impulse sufficiently strong to +arouse it.</p> + +<p>President Hibben of Princeton, who ought to know the American +undergraduate if anybody does, said recently: "Young men are capable of +far greater amounts of intensive work day in and day out than we had +dreamed of; capable of greater concentration of mind upon their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>tasks. +They respond more quickly than we have conceived to the call of duty. +The sense of responsibility is there latent, and we teachers must +endeavor to quicken and to appeal to it. We have seen that when the +occasion comes these young men rise to meet it."</p> + +<p>We can't very well stage a world war for the purpose, and I don't think +we need wait for any such crisis to bring it out. There is in every +normal, wholesome-minded student some motor nerve that can be touched in +such a way as to release that type of coördinated energy which we call a +sense of responsibility. This all goes back to knowing our men and women +and establishing human contacts and human confidences.</p> + +<p>In spite of individual disappointments, and as a college dean, I have +had my share, I am confident that the normal young American either +already possesses as a motive force some worth-while aim or that he can +be guided toward such an aim if approached in the right way.</p> + +<p>Let me quote a paragraph or so from the report of the War Department +Committee on Education:</p> + +<p>"Because the war did completely organize <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>the nation for a united drive +and thus did expose a magnificent national morale, many are inclined to +believe that war is necessary to call forth such consecration and +self-forgetful service. Analysis of the war training, however, reveals a +point of view and a method of procedure that is definitely designed to +develop team-play and to enhance morale whether there be war or not. If +these methods are applied to education in times of peace, they certainly +will produce some effect even though the result is not as profoundly +striking as it was during the war. Among the many significant features +of war training, the following are mentioned as worthy of particular +consideration for transfer to school practice:</p> + +<p>"As a primary policy, a nation at war is obliged to recognize that every +individual is an asset capable of useful service in some particular line +of work of direct benefit to the country. In order to make the most +efficient use of all its resources, it is necessary to make strenuous +exertions to discover what each individual is best qualified to do and +to train each to use his abilities in the most effective manner. Applied +to education this fundamental attitude produces two results that are of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>importance in the development of morale. The teacher's point of view +shifts from a critical one, with attention focused on discovering +whether the individual measures up to the academic standards fixed by +school authorities, to one of friendly, not to say eager interest to +discover what each individual really can do well. The student's spirit +also changes from one of discouragement and doubt of his ability ever to +make good, to one of interest and desire for achievement. Both of these +results are of large importance in releasing energy for both the teacher +and the student. They also have an immediate bearing on the enhancement +of morale."</p> + +<p>In any place of campaign to this end within a college or university, the +first thing to do is to build around that vague but very real emotion +called college spirit, to supplement this by guiding our young people to +enlist in worth-while, nation-wide or world-wide causes (we are +singularly provincial about this in America), and by ensuring better +teaching and supervision and better coördination of work.</p> + +<p>There is no question that we have underestimated both the American +undergraduate's capacity for intellectual work and his real pleasure in +it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>when he feels it worth while. One of my friends was telling me of +his experiences as commanding officer of one of the ground schools for +aviators, where a large proportion of the candidates were college +undergraduates, and I asked him if he had had any troubles as to +discipline. "Yes indeed," he replied, "night after night we'd catch some +fellows studying with a peep-light under their blankets, after taps had +sounded."</p> + +<p>Any doubts as to the instinctive reaction of the normal, healthy young +American toward educational opportunities were dispelled by the +experiences of the army in France after the armistice. The let-down, +after the terrific physical and emotional strain, the impatience +regarding any delay as to return home, combined to make a pretty serious +situation as to the morale of our troops. After some misguided and +nearly disastrous experiments as to the curative properties of heavy +drill and strict discipline, the A.E.F. recognized the necessity for a +prompt and thorough stimulation of all the welfare activities, and a +real educational program; and it was straight, old-fashioned book-work +more than it was the movies, or athletics, more even than Miss Elsie +Janis, which turned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>the corner for us. In all, more than 200,000 men +volunteered for the privilege of studying. The military order was often +reversed and majors sat at the feet of the corporals or privates who had +been selected as teachers. The reports as to the intensity of the work +of teachers and students alike should put any of us professionals to +shame.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Just now we are hearing a great deal about the benefits of discipline. I +think what the speakers are really talking about, though they don't +recognize it themselves, is the benefit of the state of mind which +accepts and welcomes discipline. We are not, even as the result of the +war, a disciplined people in the sense that Germany is, or was, and we +can thank God for it. We shall never want in this country a general +subordination of the individual will and initiative to external control. +Discipline is a means and not an end. If discipline, as such, externally +imposed, were so important a factor in success as many people seem to +think to-day, we could look through a list of ex-enlisted men in the +army and navy—I mean the men enlisted and discharged during peace +time—and find a relatively large number who made <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>conspicuously good +records after returning to civil life. As a matter of fact, we find +nothing of the kind.</p> + +<p>What we do find is that not a few enlisted men who chose the army or the +navy as their permanent career have won commissions and made fine +records. There were no better general officers in the war than men like +Harbord of our army and Robertson of the British, both of whom rose from +the ranks. But isn't it fair to say that the discipline imposed on these +men was accepted gladly and accepted in the terms of their fundamental +interest, and that these men are not really exceptions to what I have +said?</p> + +<p>I venture to predict that there will be a very different record to tell +as to the success in civil life of those men now leaving the Army, who, +because they believed in the cause and wished to participate to the full +in the great enterprise, gladly submitted themselves to the discipline +for the purpose of increasing their efficiency.</p> + +<p>In a month or so you can teach an enthusiastic man, who is fired by a +big idea, all the discipline he needs for carrying out his duties and +profiting by his opportunities, but you can't reverse the process and +incite enthusiasms as a result of the application of discipline.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>Don't think that I want to minimize the merits of military discipline +for military purposes. Of course, coördination and subordination are +absolutely necessary in the handling of large bodies of men. Even the +men in France who deserted to the front, as many of them did, no matter +how much we may sympathize with their desire to get into the game, had +to be disciplined. Someone had to stay behind and see to the supplies. +The point we are discussing is the carrying over of this principle of +military discipline intact into civilian life. So far as discipline +brings about regularity of life, of exercise, so long as it ministers to +alertness, we can use it, but as between discipline on the one hand, and +initiative and team play on the other, to meet our academic or our +national needs, I am for initiative and team play.</p> + +<p>Please don't misunderstand me. By reducing the present emphasis on +external discipline, after childhood has been passed, I don't mean a +lowering of standards. External discipline, it seems to me, is often +really imposed as a substitute for high standards; something supposed to +be just as good and more easy to keep in stock. The standards of the +worth-while organization, and these are the outward expression <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>of its +aims, its ideals, ought to be high enough and intelligently enough +administered to make sure that the men and women who are unable to +provide their own discipline, should in the general interest be +painlessly but promptly removed from the group.</p> + +<p>Here is a <i>credo</i> for the American people, from the pen of a regular +army officer. It's a pretty good one for an American University: "To +foster individual talent, imagination and initiative, to couple with +this a high degree of coöperation, and to subject these to a not too +minute direction; the whole vitalized by a supreme purpose, which serves +as the magic key to unlock the upper strata of the energies of men."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Finally, let me try to apply these lessons to you young men and women of +the graduating class.</p> + +<p>Keep in good physical shape. Overwork is usually a combination of bad +air, bad feeding, and lack of exercise and sleep. See that you don't go +stale. If you lack the zest of life, find out what the trouble is; +whether it is your teeth or your liver or your soul. Picture to yourself +what Theodore Roosevelt got out of life.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>Be honest with yourself. Do your own thinking and do it straight. This, +strangely enough, is perhaps the thing which you will find hardest to do +after the undergraduate atmosphere. A student body is, or at any rate +was before the war, the most convention ridden group of which I have any +knowledge. I am all for conventions, because they save a great deal of +time and worry, but only so far as we recognize them as conventions and +do not exalt them into principles or philosophical truths. Remember that +the public opinion of America is an infinitely more important thing to +the world than ever before, and that you are each to be a part of it.</p> + +<p>Keep your intellectual interests and your interest in your <i>alma mater</i>, +not in her athletics and her fraternities alone. Remember that as alumni +of this University you are citizens of no mean city. Recruit men and +women whom she ought to have and who ought to have her, remembering that +the danger to this country from the inside, and it is no inconsiderable +danger, is mainly due to the misdirected zeal of sincere people who lack +knowledge and background. Take for example the employer who can't see +beyond the point of telling his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>men to "take it or leave it," and the +workman whose sense of real or fancied injustice has brought him to what +with our children we know as the kicking and biting stage. It is too +late to do much with the present adult generation except by main +strength and awkwardness, but a recruit for higher education from either +of these groups is a good national investment.</p> + +<p>Keep your human contacts. Don't be a "glad-hander" but do at least your +share. It takes two to make and keep alive a friendship, just as it does +a quarrel. There is something worth while in everyone. Give yourself a +chance to find what it is. Practice following and, as the chance comes +to you, practice leading, but above all, practice team play. Keep +yourself ready to take the next step, whatever it may be. There is a +story of Marshal Joffre, of which I can at least say that it is good +enough to be true. After the first battle of the Marne some enthusiast +was proclaiming him as a second Napoleon and laying it on pretty thick. +The old gentleman stood it as long as he could and then said: "No, +Napoleon would have known what to do next, and I don't."</p> + +<p>Keep your enthusiasms and your ideals. In other words, keep your youth. +In choosing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>your life work, get into something in which the policy and +practice are such that you can throw your whole soul into the job. Don't +take yourself seriously, but take your opportunities for usefulness +seriously. Find out the callings in which America is short. There are +plenty of them, as the war has shown. Think over whether it isn't +possible for you to be one of the men or one of the women who, from your +training and momentum and vision, will be selected ten or fifteen or +twenty years hence, to take on some important job, with the nation as +your client, as the one person best qualified to fill it.</p> + +<p>We no longer have to prove that it pays to know, to really know almost +anything that is worth while. It pays in money, if that is what one +wants; it pays in the more enduring satisfactions of life, in the +pleasure that comes from exact knowledge and intellectual pioneering, in +the almost unique joy of creation without the responsibilities of +possession, and in the feeling of individual readiness to be of use in +meeting the problems which the years allotted to your generation will +surely bring forth.</p> + +<h4>FOOTNOTE:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Commencement address delivered at the University of +Michigan, June 26, 1919.</p></div> +<p> </p> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Transcriber's Note</p> +<br /> + +Typographical error corrected in the text:<br /> +<br /> + +Page 52 centerdness changed to centeredness +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 32608-h.txt or 32608-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/2/6/0/32608">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/6/0/32608</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/32608-h/images/deco.jpg b/32608-h/images/deco.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4692059 --- /dev/null +++ b/32608-h/images/deco.jpg diff --git a/32608.txt b/32608.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e88f6a --- /dev/null +++ b/32608.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2296 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Some War-time Lessons, by Frederick P. +(Frederick Paul) Keppel + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Some War-time Lessons + The Soldier's Standards of Conduct; The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship; What Have We Learned? + + +Author: Frederick P. (Frederick Paul) Keppel + + + +Release Date: May 30, 2010 [eBook #32608] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images +generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries +(http://www.archive.org/details/americana) + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive/American Libraries. See + http://www.archive.org/details/somewartimelesso00kepprich + + + + + +SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS + + * * * * * + +COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS +SALES AGENTS + +NEW YORK +LEMCKE & BUECHNER +30-32 EAST 20TH STREET + +LONDON +HUMPHREY MILFORD +AMEN CORNER, E.C. + +SHANGHAI +EDWARD EVANS & SONS, LTD. +30 NORTH SZECHUEN ROAD + + * * * * * + + +SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS + +The Soldier's Standards of Conduct +The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship +What Have We Learned? + +by + +FREDERICK PAUL KEPPEL + +Third Assistant Secretary of War + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +New York +Columbia University Press +1920 + +All rights reserved + +Copyright, 1920 +By Columbia University Press + +Printed from type, January, 1920 + +Printed at +The Plimpton Press +Norwood Mass U S A + + + + +TO + +NEWTON D. BAKER + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + I. THE AMERICAN SOLDIER AND HIS STANDARDS + OF CONDUCT 9 + + II. THE WAR AS A PRACTICAL TEST OF AMERICAN + SCHOLARSHIP 36 + + III. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? 66 + + + + +SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS + +THE AMERICAN SOLDIER AND HIS STANDARDS OF CONDUCT[1] + + +Perhaps the greatest laboratory experiment in human conduct in the +history of the world has been the development of our Army during the +past two years. Under the provisions of the Selective Service Law, this +Army has represented a cross section of American male humanity--even +more representative indeed than was intended; for in the efforts of the +Local Boards to send men who could best be spared, many found their way +into the ranks who were handicapped from the start by low mentality or +disease. What were the guiding forces which operated upon this body of +nearly four million men? + +In the first place, our country entered the war with a great moral +purpose, untinged by any trace of national or individual selfishness. +We really have to go back to the Crusades to find the like. And, as +then, each man supplemented this great basal impulse with whatever was +to him the strongest incentive--religion, patriotism, pride of family or +state or regiment, the desire to excel in what all were attempting. + +In the second place, thanks primarily to the vision and determination of +one man, the individual appeal to each soldier as to his personal share +in the great enterprise was upon the highest plane. We were fortunate in +having at the head of the War Department a man peculiarly sensitive to +community problems and with no small experience in their solution. +Through the centuries men had come to the belief that if their soldiers +were only valiant and disciplined in arms, it would not do to inquire +too curiously into their personal standards of conduct in other +matters--that a considerable wastage in military strength from +drunkenness and disease was inevitable. And as we all know, this wastage +has in the past sapped, not only the strength of the Army, but +afterwards the very life of the nation to which the soldier must sooner +or later return. + +The Secretary of War and his lieutenants, chief among whom in this field +should be placed the Chairman of the Committee on Training Camp +Activities, Raymond B. Fosdick, approached this problem neither in the +fatalistic spirit that what has always been must continue to be, nor in +a spirit of what, for want of a better term, I may call doctrinaire +idealism. They faced the fact that among the hundreds of thousands of +young men who were to be called to the colors, there would be many whose +ears would be deaf to any abstract appeal, and many others to whom such +an appeal might be made under normal conditions, but who in fatigue or +the let-down following the strain of conflict, could not be depended +upon to stand in the hour of temptation. As a result the whole field of +preventive measures was thoroughly studied and vigorous treatment was +applied. The Army regulations as to prophylaxis and the introduction of +intoxicants into camps were strictly and honestly enforced. The Army saw +to it that state and local laws as to liquor and prostitution were +properly carried out, and if these were lacking, they were promptly +enacted. The so-called Zone Law was adopted for the purpose of placing +the immediate vicinity of camps under Federal control. In some cases +where the community showed signs of regarding the Army policy in this +regard as a _beau geste_ and nothing more, it was made to realize that +while the War Department could not compel the community to mend its +ways, it could and would move the camp in twenty-four hours to a more +wholesome environment. I am proud to say that it was necessary in only a +very few instances to bring forward this aspect of the situation, but +when it was necessary the Department spoke in no uncertain tone. + +As a result of this general policy, in which the Navy shared, many a +wide-open town received a thorough house cleaning for the first time in +its career; in all between 120 and 140 red light districts were closed +and kept closed; and the underlying sordidness of many a smug +self-satisfied village was brought to light and remedied. + +The men who came to the camps tainted with venereal disease or broken by +drink or morphine--and the number of these was great enough to shock our +national complacency (and incidentally to explode the national +assumption that the country is primarily the abode of virtue as the +city is of vice)--these men were salvaged by the tens of thousands and +turned into useful self-respecting soldiers and citizens. + +The lesson of clean living was taught by the spoken word, by the moving +picture, by the printed page, by the doctor with a scientific +thoroughness and by the layman with a frankness and sometimes a +colloquialism which would for once have rendered Mrs. Grundy speechless. +As an instrument of virtue, the tract is, of course, of time-honored +usage, but the name of George Ade in the list of tract writers is a new +and significant one. + +More important than all this, however, in my judgment, was the +realization by the Army of the great truth that the soldier--or any one +else for that matter--goes astray in only the rarest instances from +innate depravity. What he seeks primarily is relaxation and amusement. +And so wholesome relaxation and amusement were placed at his disposal to +take the place of the unwholesome. The whole nation rose to help in this +work of substituting the clean for the unclean. It poured its money by +the hundreds of millions into the coffers of the great welfare +societies, the Red Cross, The Young Men's Christian Association, Knights +of Columbus, Jewish Welfare Board, and later in recognition of its work +abroad, the Salvation Army. All of these vied with one another in a +rivalry which was sometimes embarrassing in its intensity. The American +Library Association supplied books and other reading matter, and the War +Camp Community Service made sure that, to the towns and villages +surrounding it, a cantonment presented an opportunity for service rather +than for exploitation. Not the least important factor in the superb +showing which our troops made in France was the spirit with which the +men and women of these same towns inspired the men from the training +camps whom they took into their homes and their hearts. + +Within the fabric of the Army the chaplains were doing their share, as +were the athletic leaders and song leaders and dramatic coaches. They +were seconded by the officers of the line, most of whom, it should be +said, saw the military usefulness of the whole program from the first, +many of the experienced regulars having always done what they could with +the limited means at their command along the same lines. Other officers, +however, had to be shown--and were shown--the military importance of +the truth that the merry heart goes all the day, and the sad one tires +in a mile. + +The work of planning and coordination was in the hands of the civilian +Commission on Training Camp Activities, of which Mr. Fosdick has been +from the first the Chairman. The work of this Commission has been +characterized from the outset by a courage and resourcefulness for which +no praise can be too high. The theatre for example has not always been +looked upon by the American people as a moral agency, but the Commission +saw its place in the scheme of things and no fewer than thirty-seven +great playhouses have been erected at the camps and the audiences have +run literally into the millions. Boxing likewise was encouraged, even +though some of the contests which resulted were not of the most gentle. +Cantonment towns were persuaded to open the "Movies" on Sunday, the only +day on which most soldiers could leave the Camp--the outcries of the +_unco guid_ to the contrary notwithstanding. + +For more than a year the Commission and the welfare organizations were +the only organized forces in this general field, but since last summer +their work has been supplemented by the establishment within the Army +itself of a Morale Branch of the General Staff, in the formation of +which the Department was not too proud to take a leaf--perhaps one +should say a Blatt--from the Germans, who had already developed this +type of organization to a high degree, under the direct supervision of +General Ludendorff. + + * * * * * + +I have spoken of the work of prevention, of the more important work of +substitution, and I now come to the most important of all--the spirit of +confidence which extended from top to bottom of the huge organization +that the great mass of our men would go straight for the sake of going +straight. We all instinctively couple the two words, "officer" and +"gentleman." In the great Army which is now being disbanded, its work +having been so gloriously done, we find a new and enlarged conception, +that of the soldier and gentleman. It was, I am certain, the preliminary +assumption that an American soldier was also an American gentleman in +all the fundamentals of that much-abused term, which was the great +factor in keeping down the number of those who proved the contrary to so +negligibly small a total. + +A few figures from the official records will show what the result of +this all has been. In 1909, for instance, there were in the Army, in +round numbers, 5500 court-martial convictions of enlisted men, out of a +total of 75,000. For the fifteen months ending July 1, 1918, there were +11,500 convictions out of a total of 2,200,000 enlisted men, the +percentage in the twelve months of peace being 7.3 and in the fifteen +months of war, .53, about one-fourteenth as great. The significance of +these later figures cannot be appreciated without some knowledge of the +underlying circumstances. One case I remember was that of a man who got +drunk, spent his money and that of some fellow soldiers, and stayed +absent without leave to earn money enough to repay his fellow soldiers +and then returned to camp to take his medicine. What on the surface +appears to be the cowardly crime of desertion was, in several instances +of which I have personal knowledge, a misguided effort to get to the +front, through enlistment under another name in some branch of the +service which seemed to have an earlier prospect of getting over. In +France there were many cases of desertion, but nearly all were from the +rear to the front. The progressive success of the policy of keeping the +soldier from strong drink, by the way, stands out in the figures, which +show that early in the war one out of every twelve offenses charged +included drunkenness, but that this proportion dropped until the final +figures were less than one in each thirty offenses, this including +soldiers in France, where the soldier had to stand on his own feet +unprotected by prohibition laws. + +The welfare program was, from the nature of the case, most effective +among the men of the National Army, where it was possible to take the +soldiers in hand from the first. If we analyze the court-martial +records, we find that the proportion of court-martials was distinctly +lowest in this group. The records as of June 30, 1918, show that the +number of court-martials among the Regular Army was a little less than +one per cent, to be accurate 8/10 of one per cent; in the National Guard +the proportion was about 9/10 of one per cent; and in the National Army +it was less than 2/10 of one per cent, the exact figure being .143 per +cent, one-fiftieth of the percentage ten years ago. + +Another check on the efficiency of the program is found in the records +as to venereal disease in the Surgeon General's Office. It is hard to +get comparative figures because of constantly changing conditions, but +it has been shown beyond all doubt that the health conditions in the +Army have been far, far better than in the community at large. While the +latter are not so bad as the alarmists have implied, they are serious +enough in all conscience, when in no fewer than seventeen of the states, +sixty or more of every thousand men who appeared at the mobilization +camps were found to be infected. Taking a typical month before the +signing of the armistice, we find that the proportion of cases coming to +the camps from the civil community was fifteen times as great as the +proportion among our soldiers in France, even including the soldiers in +the port towns, where most of our difficulties there were found. The +comparison with the records of the cantonments in this country is even +more striking. + + * * * * * + +As to the purely religious appeal and its influence on the men it is +hard to speak with any degree of certainty. A visiting British general +in Washington, shortly after our entry into the war, was asked as to +conditions in England, and is reported to have replied, "Upon my soul, +if you ask me, I should say that with us the dear old Church has rather +missed the bus." In this country the organized religious forces have by +no means missed the bus, but if we are honest with ourselves we must +face the fact that since the last great national test, the Civil War, +other appeals to higher standards of conduct have both actually and +relatively been tremendously strengthened, and our religious leaders +must address themselves, in the light of experience during these past +two years, to a clearer understanding of these other forces and to a +closer cooperation with them. We cannot to-day close our eyes to the +truth that many of our finest men played their splendid parts quite +untouched by a religious motive or appeal--or at least doctrinal appeal; +one hesitates to call their attitude a non-religious one. It must always +be remembered, however, that their standards, no matter how unconscious +they may have been of the fact, were fundamentally based upon the +development of a Christian civilization. + +If thus far I may have seemed to measure soldier conduct by two +standards only, by his relation to drink and to women, it is because the +results of the policy of the Army in these two matters are measurable, +the records are outstanding. The Army and its experience however would +furnish but a poor guide to the Churches and the other civilian forces +for righteousness if its lessons were limited to the negative virtues, +important as they are, of sobriety and continence. + +The real contribution, what we have learned as to the positive virtues, +is harder to describe and impossible to measure, but the lessons are +worth looking for and may be learned from the letters and from the lips +of our men. Perhaps I can best indicate what the men themselves regard +as vital by telling the experience of a friend who started one of the +customary practical talks before an audience of our men behind the lines +in France. His homily didn't seem to be "getting across" and he was +inspired to ascertain just what to their minds were the most serious +offenses. He asked each man to write down what he regarded as the three +very worst faults against which a soldier should be on his guard. When +the answers were collected, one word appeared on practically every slip +of paper, _cowardice_; the second was not so nearly unanimous, but +appears on a strong majority of the papers, _selfishness_; and the third +was evidently _conceitedness_, though the defect was worded in +different ways, as _big head_, _crust_, and the like. + +In other words, the virtues which the soldier most admires and regarding +which he had evidently learned the most valuable lessons, are courage, +unselfishness or cooperativeness, and modesty. + +The record of our soldiers has proved beyond a doubt that once you get +men into groups with a common and a worth-while purpose, courage--both +the reckless courage that comes by instinct and that higher type, the +courage of the man who recognizes his danger--can no longer be assumed +to be a rare virtue. It is a very common virtue. Cowardice is infinitely +rarer. The citations and the casualty records, for instance, have +completely rehabilitated the Jew as a fighting man, and the faithful +need no longer go back to Josephus for their war legends. + +Not all the courage and fortitude was shown on the field of battle. We +must not forget that last fall we suffered from by far the most serious +epidemic in the history of America, and, in the dark days in our +training camps, opportunities were offered, and gladly accepted, for a +display of heroism and devotion of the highest type. + +In the realm of fortitude, if not of physical courage, the war certainly +tapped new sources of determination and provided a kind of stimulus +which would keep a man to whom no personal glory or conspicuousness +could possibly come, some poor devil sentenced to a swivel chair, +laboring in that same chair day and night for the purpose of making some +single improvement in nut or bolt, or perhaps filing card. Given the +impetus of a great common purpose, our possibilities for industry are +limitless. + +One thing that mankind should have learned long since is that, broadly +speaking, selfishness as a guiding motive is essentially negative--the +absence of something better--the man is a rare exception who does not +lose himself and his self-interest in the conception or the ambition of +the group, the squad or battalion or regiment, the division, the army or +the nation. An interesting side-light upon this is the fact that +two-thirds of the men who get into trouble in the Army, or at any rate +who get into sufficiently serious trouble to land them in Fort +Leavenworth, are markedly of the ego-centric type; in other words, are +men for whom the group cannot overcome the individual bias. + +That our soldiers as a whole possess the virtue of modesty, though it is +often overlaid by a veneer of innocent swagger, is beyond dispute, as +any one who has had to do with them can testify. And underlying +and inspiring their whole conduct have been the qualities of +whole-souledness and determination and an indomitable cheerfulness. + + * * * * * + +We must learn the lessons which the soldiers have to teach us in the +large just as we must grasp their accomplishments in the large. There is +a morning after for nations as well as for individuals, and we seem just +now to be in danger of losing our conception of the greatness of the +enterprise, and its essential soundness, through the intrusion of the +instances, relatively very few, where things did not go right; where +human nature did not reach the heights, or having reached them, failed +to remain upon them. + +It has, I think, been definitely proved that the mixing up of the +so-called welfare work with the special function of the clergymen or +other religious adviser, in order that the latter may be made more +palatable to the soldier, has an effect exactly the reverse of what was +intended. The policy of interpolating a prayer meeting, or a +heart-to-heart talk, between the third and fourth reels of the moving +picture play, and I grieve to say that such a policy was actually +followed for a while, is of course a fantastic example, but it shows +exactly how we ought not to do it. + +The soldiers are peculiarly sensitive to any feeling that what is done +for them is done for some other purpose than the ostensible one, +entirely apart from how worthy such other purpose may be. Let me quote +from a letter written by an officer of the Army who had been visiting a +number of camps: + +"The Camp Library to my mind fulfills one of the most vital needs of the +camp. It is a place where our men can get relaxation and mental +stimulus, and where they can feel at ease without the 'God-bless-you' +atmosphere of the other welfare organizations."... "It is the one place +in camp where you can go and have a chance to meditate or read in peace +and quiet without a piano jangling in your ears or the imminent +possibility of a prayer meeting." + +The chaplain or the lay religious worker to whom a man instinctively +turned at the moment when he needed spiritual help was the one whom he +had learned to respect for courage and devotion and dignity, the man who +had helped to bury his dead friend, to comfort and amuse his wounded +friend, and to advise his misguided friend in the guard-house; not the +one whose ill-timed ministrations he had learned to avoid. I understand +that the story of the chaplain who entirely forgot that he was to appear +at a review for the purpose of receiving a medal and delayed the entire +proceedings while he was sought for and found in his customary post in +the connecting trench, is absolutely authentic. + +The man who could forget his denomination in his devotion to the great +common mission was the man whom the soldier learned to love and to trust +and who could do the most in the day of battle. The most popular tales +among the chaplains are the tales of unorthodoxy: The Catholic priest +who baptized a group of his men before action in a shell hole with water +which was not only unblessed, but I fear unsanitary, and who simply +referred to Philip and the Eunuch when reproved; the Methodist and +Baptist, and I think the Episcopalian, who in the absence of their +Presbyterian colleague, solemnly and quite illegally received a +youngster into the Presbyterian fold before he went overseas, and +confessed the next morning to the Presbyterian Board; the Wesleyan +chaplain in the British Army who carried a crucifix to comfort the dying +Catholics on the battlefield when no priest of their faith was near, and +who administered the last rites to them as best he could. There are +hundreds of such stories. + +The appeal of any denomination as such, or of the Y, or the +corresponding societies of other faiths, as such, was always mistaken. +It was the united appeal of all the doers of good deeds which counted. +If we never knew before, we know now the truth of the fable of the +bundle of fagots. Personally, I believe the united drive for welfare +work last fall, during which Protestant, Catholic and Jew, and men of no +formal religion whatever, appealed from the same platform for the same +great purpose, was an event of the greatest importance in our nation, +and it will go ill with us if we forget the lesson that it has to teach. + +The appeal must be not only disinterested, but it must be simple and +direct. This, and the careful selection of its personnel, had much, if +not most, to do with the extraordinary success of the Salvation Army. +There are times in a soldier's life when the sewing on of a button at +some vital spot will do more to "get" him than anything else in the +world. + +Out of this spirit of general helpfulness, there were developed at +almost every point the most beautiful and sympathetic adjustments to +immediate conditions. For example, take the plan of showing moving +pictures upon the ceilings of hospital wards, so that the very ill may +enjoy them without the strain even of raising their heads. This small +piece of thoughtfulness to me represents the standard of thinking a +problem through which we will have to maintain if we are to hold what we +have gained, and what we have gained includes, or should include, a +realization that active and willing loving-kindness furnishes the +keenest of all pleasures. + + * * * * * + +Thus far I have spoken mainly of the work of preparation in the United +States. Overseas our soldiers and their officers found new conditions +and were forced to make new adjustments. We no longer could control the +laws and ordinances, and we found different standards of conduct--not +necessarily lower standards, but different standards. We could no longer +enforce prohibition for example, but we did maintain a high average of +temperance. We showed our allies, some of whom I may say were honestly +sceptical on the subject, that with our soldiers continence was the +rule, and not the exception. When I was in France last year, I asked +those who were in a position to know upon this point and was told that, +comparatively speaking, very, very few of our men lowered in France the +standards of conduct which they held when they came into the Army, that +many more greatly improved those standards, either because of the +lessons they had learned in our training camps, or because of the +wholesome companionship of the women workers with whom they were daily +brought in contact, or because, and this was probably the most potent +factor of all, they were so desperately keen to get into the fighting +line that they were taking no chances of being put out of commission +beforehand. Their morality was the morality of the team in training for +the big game, and it kept tens of thousands of boys straight. Indeed, +until November 11, disciplinary problems may be said to have been +practically non-existent among combat troops and almost negligible among +the others. After the armistice was signed, there was a let-down, this +being after all a very human body of young men, and the first remedy +tried by some of the old-time regulars did not help a bit. This was to +"give 'em plenty of drill and make 'em so tired they won't have energy +to get into mischief," but as one returning artillery officer pointed +out to me, when a battery a month before has fired 50,000 rounds of +high-explosive at the Boche, and worked its guns over craters and +through thickets, a drill with dummy ammunition on a parade ground is +almost a justification for mutiny. Wiser counsel soon prevailed and the +welfare work, which had slumped with the rest, was again brought up to +concert pitch. It was for the first time in France, properly coordinated +under Army control. The misfits and the workers who had worn themselves +out were returned to this country and their places taken by fresh blood. +I remember in this connection a paragraph tucked in the middle of the +uncompromising officialdom of the daily departmental cable: "Send over +plenty of welfare workers and remember the best men you can send are the +women." + +Let me take this chance to say a word about the criticisms we have been +hearing of this welfare work abroad. In the first place, the success of +the work in this country among the men in training set up an expectation +which it was humanly impossible to meet under the conditions overseas; +in other words, the men who went over assumed standards as to the +minimum amount of attention which it was their right to expect, the like +of which had never been dreamed in the history of mankind. As a matter +of fact, and taken as a whole, the treatment which they received was +admirable and the comparatively few who now doubt the truth of this +statement will come to realize it as time goes on. They will see that +the misfits, the over-wrought, stood out in their minds like men out of +alignment at parade, that they simply did not notice the thousands of +men and women whose work for them was all that their own mothers could +have asked. + +The following official cablegram records the state of educational, +recreation and welfare work at the end of April, 1919. + +"Educational activities: Roughly there are 209,000 students embraced in +this scheme. Ten thousand are at A.E.F. University at Beaune, some 7,000 +are attending French universities. 3,000 attending British. There are +roughly 130,000 men at Post Schools, which correspond to our elementary +schools in United States. 55,000 are attending the Divisional +Educational Schools, which correspond to our High schools. In addition +there are approximately 58,000 men in specialized vocational schools +where they have full shop facilities of A.E.F. + +"Athletic activities: Athletic activities increasing daily in scope and +popularity. Figures for February show 6,500,000 individual participants +in games. In addition to mass athletics, unit championships are being +played in football, basketball, soccer, boxing, tennis, swimming, tug of +war, golf, track and field. + +"Entertainment activities: Reports of entertainment officers show +monthly attendance for A.E.F. of between eight and ten million. Moving +pictures, professional talent from United States and particularly +soldier shows being utilized in all parts of army and have done much to +take care of leisure hours of troops. Horse shows have been held in +nearly every division of A.E.F. and have proved very popular. Amount of +all this work now being carried on is little short of stupendous." + +The following paragraphs from a personal letter are particularly +significant as coming from an officer of the regular army, who when he +was in command of one of the cantonments in the United States was +genuinely alarmed lest the War Department had not lost its sense of +proportion, and was creating parlor ornaments instead of fighting men: + +"I served in the Army of Occupation in the Philippines and in China +after the Boxer campaign, and I want to tell you that the discipline and +_esprit de corps_ of these troops in Germany is incomparably better than +anything I saw there. + +"I think nothing has so contributed to this result as the welfare work +and the educational work undertaken. We have every reason to be proud of +the fact that we had people in command of the army who had the vision to +see what result this work would bring. + +"I took command of the --th Division in the Army of Occupation in +December, and up until the present time I never worked with a happier or +more contented lot of men. Of course they all want to go home, and we +wouldn't have much use for them if they didn't, but an intensified +military course of training in the morning, schools and athletics in the +afternoon, and study and entertainment in the evening have made their +days so full that they have been perfectly contented to stay until their +boat comes in June. + +"This has been the experience of all the divisions up here in Germany, +and their enthusiasm, I fear, when they get home, may be taken for +pro-Germanism." + + * * * * * + +The War Department has learned so much in this great laboratory +experiment in human conduct that the impious wish sometimes arises in +one's mind that we might promptly try it all over again for the chance +of profiting by our mistakes. Thank God we can't do that, but in our +daily contact with these same men restored to their communities we can +to a certain degree carry on the work, and in so doing we can learn much +from the successes and failures of the Army. + +In planning for the immediate future, there are some things which we +mustn't forget. In the first place, we mustn't expect these young men +(or any humans for that matter) to be capable of remaining at concert +pitch indefinitely. + +For a while, in dealing with the soldier who has returned from overseas, +real ingenuity will be required to make much impression upon his mind. +Not only will ordinary life seem tame but, frankly, he is likely to have +been overhandled and overwelfared. If, however, we have erred in this +regard, it has been on the right side. + +May I venture still another suggestion, and that is to be careful and +considerate of the soldier who, despite his earnest desire, failed to +get across, and for the matter of that, of the young man who didn't get +into the Army at all. The morale of these two groups will need our +particular care. + +In closing, however, we should not end upon a note of warning, but +rather upon one of exultation; for the war has taught us, if it has +taught nothing else, that, given a great cause and a cross-section of +our heterogeneous American population, the resulting revelation of the +power of human endurance, human courage and human accomplishment comes +pretty near to proving objectively the divinity of man. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: An address delivered at the one hundredth anniversary of +the General Theological Seminary, New York, April 30, 1919.] + + + + +THE WAR AS A PRACTICAL TEST OF AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP[2] + + +It is a difficult task to attempt to define the American scholar of +to-day. If any of you doubt it, let him try it as I have tried. +Scholarship, like many another broad term, has no sharply marked edges. +It is hard to define anything that lacks definiteness; and, after all, +the task is relatively profitless, because we all of us recognize what +is at the center of the concept. I think we all recognize that the +scholar is an expert in some particular field or fields; but he is more +than the expert as such, in that he knows enough of other matters to see +his particular specialty in its relation to things in general. He must, +to this degree at least, be a philosopher. This very general conception +of scholarship is fairly constant, but the fields which the conception +includes are broadening day by day and almost hour by hour. We cannot +to-day limit scholarship to the polite branches which were all that it +embodied when this Society was founded or even when this Chapter was +established. The scholar of the old-fashioned type must now accept as +his fellow the man who has helped to flatten the trajectory of the +16-inch shell, or to control the birth rate of the cootie. Later on I +shall suggest one other element which, in the light of the test which +American scholarship has undergone in the past two years, it seems to me +should now be included in our idea of the typical American scholar. + +We Americans are proud of being called a nation of inventors; and most +of us have made, or almost made, private discoveries of an inventional +nature which, for some reason, have never come to fruition. The +scientific boards in Washington during the war received more than sixty +thousand suggestions in some mechanical field; and I am told by those +who ought to know that of all these not more than five of those coming +from untrained minds were of any practical value. Even from the trained +minds there came, I am told, no fundamental discovery in science as a +direct result of the war conditions. Suggestions of improvements in +detail and valuable suggestions there were in plenty, new applications +of known principles, but application of a fundamentally new idea, no. +That is only to say what we already know, that discovery is not made to +order. In each case the idea had already been born in the mind of some +intellectual pioneer and worked out by him, and some man who had the +idea in the front of his mind was at hand to apply it to the new +condition. And that means, I think, that if we met the test, we met it +with our scholars. + +When the test came, certain fields of scholarship naturally afforded a +better chance for immediate service than others. The chemist, for +example, had a better chance a thousand-fold than the archaeologist. It +is extraordinary, however, how many of the gifts which burned bright on +the national altar came from men with some out-of-the-way specialty. +Take archaeology itself, if you will. The best trench helmet developed +during the war was designed by the expert in armor from our own academic +fellowship. I am told that a very important element in the length of +time which it took to control the submarine menace was the fact that +when war broke out the science of oceanography was almost wholly in the +hands of the Germans. When the world's supply of cocoanut husks was +taken up for gas masks and we still needed charcoal, we had to turn for +additional sources to the tropical botanist, who might have been +expected to remain reasonably undisturbed. It remained for a scholar in +perhaps the purest branch of pure science, astronomy, to recognize the +well known fact that it is the shape of the tail of any and every moving +object, motor car or boat or what you will, and not the shape of the +head, which is the factor of chief importance in design, and to apply +this recognition to artillery problems. The re-designing of our +artillery shells under the direction of this astronomer added miles to +their range. Another astronomer applied his experience in studying the +movement of comets to solving certain problems of long-range artillery +fire where the projectile in its flight rises into the circumambient +ether. + +In proving the case for the American scholar, as I think we can prove +it, we should not be beguiled into the pleasant task of recording the +deeds of scholars and gentlemen when the deeds were those of the gallant +gentleman rather than of the scholar _per se_. We have one here in our +own academic family whose lieutenant's bars I should be as proud to wear +as the stars of any of our generals. Nor need we, I think, cite the +instances where the rigorous training of the scholar clearly laid the +foundation for great accomplishment in some general field of +administration. The man whom we can thank perhaps more than any other +for the brilliant conduct of our war finance was seventeen years ago +editor-in-chief of the _Columbia Law Review_. We may well turn with +pride, but we don't need him to prove our point, to the scholar of this +university, formerly president of this Chapter, who, from his own +talents and experience and his alert sense of scholarship in others, has +earned the place which he now holds as educational director of the +largest university in the world, the A.E.F. University at Beaune. + + * * * * * + +Our case rests, as I say, upon the direct applications of scholarship, +and not only upon their quality, but on their range. A single division +of the National Research Council, in its report for 1918, showed work of +national significance by the scholars in physics, mathematics, and +allied fields toward the solution of no fewer than sixty-eight +different problems, every one of which needed for its solution men with +training and knowledge and vision. At the outset, who among us had the +slightest conception of the complexity of the adaptations to warfare of +what was known to modern scholarship? We knew that the war was mounting +into the air, but who had any realization of the adjustments which this +involved? Fifteen fundamental problems based on pure physics promptly +arose with reference to instruments for airplane operation. For example, +at night and in the clouds, the aviator must have before his eyes a dial +which will indicate the slightest deviation from his course. Seven +problems had to do with airplane photography. As the art of camouflage +advanced, for instance, color filters had to be devised for its +detection from above. Seven additional problems had to do with factors +of construction and maintenance, as fuel efficiency. Nine others +affected ballooning; and the balloon, as the war developed, came to be +of greater and greater importance. Eleven studies were in signalling: +one, for example, a device for secret daylight signalling, with a range +of five miles or more. And please remember that all these were the task +of one branch of one organization within the field of pure science. By +common consent, the dullest branch of physics was held to be acoustics, +but since 1914 the whole question of sound-ranging has been in the hands +of experts in acoustics. A device developed by American physicists gave +our men nineteen seconds in which to take cover from cannon fired four +miles away. The most brilliant work in this field was that of a former +student of the Columbia School of Mines. + +If I were to pick out one field in which the scholarly attitude has been +most brilliantly rewarded, it is that of medicine. If our army surgeons +and sanitarians had been confined to the practical family doctors, who +cannot be bothered with all this new-fangled stuff, our men would have +died like flies from disease, as they did in the Spanish-American War. +It was the laboratory man, the theorist, the highbrow if you like, who +made our health record a matter of national pride and congratulation. It +was the knowledge of a scholar, coupled with his instinctive +understanding of the human heart--neither could have accomplished the +purpose alone--which sent hundreds of shell-shocks, as they came to be +called (people used to call the condition by an uglier, if not a +shorter, term) back into the lines with self-respect and nerve renewed. + +To turn to another field, it was a real scholar, even if he were also a +dean, who, in spite of the best efforts of his practical associates to +deter him, brought order out of chaos in the most important of our war +boards through the collection and skillful presentation of statistical +data. + +In many cases it was the scholar whom we must thank for the pointing out +of the obvious. The early drafts rejected thousands of excellent +potential soldiers because our existing height regulations were drawn +for men of the northern European races; and the minimum height limit was +well within the normal variation of the men of southern European +ancestry, which has been so large an element in our recent immigration. +Similarly, men of science have pointed out that the length of the +marching step depends not alone on the length of the legs, but even more +on the width of the hips, a simple fact which is of real military +significance. The scholars in the Forest Products laboratories knew how +to make boxes that would not break and spill their contents on the +wharves at Hoboken or St. Nazaire, and, equally important, they knew +how to educate the quartermasters to use them. + +The fact that in many fields we reached the limits of available +man-power meant a wonderful stimulation to the study of certain problems +affecting human welfare. Take for example the physiological aspects of +industrial fatigue. In this field an excellent theoretical start had +been made before the war, but the appeal was limited to those interested +in the individual worker. With the war, however, and the shortage of +labor, came a new and, I fear, a more potent appeal--the interest in the +product and its prompt production. The worker who collapsed could not be +replaced. Long hours or unsanitary surroundings meant spoiled material +and broken-down machinery and resultant delay. And when there was a +scholar at hand to show why this was so, you may be sure he had his day +in court. + +The work of the scholar has not wholly been in getting things done. +Perhaps an equally important side was in keeping impossible or +unprofitable things from being attempted. When time was of the very +essence of the whole program, the man who could say "No" and prove the +validity of his objection, performed a positive work of great value. +One of our associates at Columbia had a leading share in devising tests +for candidates for the flying school, which, by rejecting the unfit at +the outset, saved many lives from the time of their adoption and many, +many thousands of dollars; for the training of a flyer who cannot be +used when the time comes is a very costly piece of national extravagance +in both money and men. + +Our scholars did not confine their activities to the battle of +Washington. Not only as engineers and doctors, but as geologists and +geographers, as meteorologists and sanitarians, they went with the +troops to the front, and their counsel as to actual military operations +was welcomed and followed. One of them, a bachelor and doctor of this +University, died in the service in France. The scholar, like the +soldier, stood ready to step forward to fill the gap in the ranks as he +saw it, regardless of whether something more dignified might be found +for him to do. Our own Barnard, Professor of Education, took what he was +pleased to call his vacation in applying his scholarship to organizing +an educational program for the wounded men in our hospitals, as a +therapeutic measure. Being a scholar and not merely an expert, he saw +the broad human aspect of his specialty; that the first thing to do with +the man who is blinded, or otherwise maimed, is to make him realize that +it is worth while to get well; that he can have a life which is worth +living; that if his old job is no longer possible, there are others for +which he can be trained. One of America's most distinguished +philosophical chemists settled down to the humble but very essential +problem of making mixed flours rise and bake with a crust--and solved +it. The war services of a past President of this Chapter, now, alas, no +longer with us, and those of our present President have been as useful +as they have been inconspicuous. + +The need for the scholar was not only qualitative, but quantitative. But +for the general distribution of chemical knowledge in France and +England, and the presence of men capable of promptly applying that +knowledge to combat the gas attacks launched by the Germans, the war +would have been lost before we could possibly have rendered the +slightest assistance; and on our side of the Atlantic when the armistice +was signed, there were two thousand trained chemists engaged in the +problems of gas warfare alone. Our country, in a word, needed not only +to have some men with the requisite training, but men enough to meet +simultaneously many needs in many fields, and these men were drawn in +large measure from our academic faculties. While one must not press the +identity between the scholar and the professor too hard--for a number of +reasons--the fact remains that the teaching profession provided the main +reservoir from which the country drew. One of my friends in the Chemical +Warfare Service has summarized the relation between the academic scholar +and that branch of the army activity. Both chiefs of the Chemical +Service Station were college professors, one of them a member of this +Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Of the fourteen heads of the Research +Division, eight were college professors. It was the college professors +who made fundamental improvements in gas masks on the one hand, and who +devised new gases to test the German masks on the other. + + * * * * * + +As a nation, we did not realize at the outset, as Germany did, the +importance of the man who knows, and of knowing who he is and where he +is; and here, perhaps, lay our most fundamental unpreparedness. What +this cost us may be judged from a single instance. A code message from +Germany directing the dismantling of the German ships lying in our ports +was intercepted. If we had known that there was a professor of English +in the University of Chicago who, in the pursuit of his medieval +researches, had developed the power of reading ciphers almost at sight, +that cable from Germany could have been promptly deciphered, we could +have forestalled the sabotage, and something like six months in the use +of these ships for the transport of our troops and munitions could have +been gained. + +The job of getting the man who knew into the right niche was not an easy +one. The scholars could not all be spared; for, after all, education and +research are essential industries, and, fortunately for our institutions +of learning, for our reviews and scientific agencies, and fortunately +for the country as a whole, all of our scholars did not rush immediately +into government work. The less thrilling task of keeping the lamps +burning in our lighthouses was never more important than during the +stormy days which we have just gone through. Furthermore, the scholar is +a modest person, though he has his human vanities, as we all know who +have seen our colleagues in uniform; but usually some one had to know +about him and invite him to his place, a very sharp contrast to the +business men and lawyers who came down to Washington by the trainload to +impress us with their capacity to do any job which involved a commission +of properly high degree. + +In general, I should say that the individuals in the universities met +the test better than the institutions themselves. The latter did not, it +seems to me, as institutions, grasp the situation. Very few studied the +question of the assignment of their specialists as a problem in +conservation as well as in publicity; and as far as the use of their +facilities in the training of soldiers and sailors is concerned, the War +Department and the Navy Department had literally to teach them how to +meet the war conditions. Such help as came from organized bodies of +scholars came rather from the learned societies than from the academic +groups. + +Then there was a further difficulty, particularly among the younger men, +though not wholly among them. The expert's job, and hence inclusively +the scholar's job, is relatively safe so far as the immediate risk of +death is concerned, though not the risk of shortening life through +overwork. One Columbia man, well over the draft age, told me frankly +that he would gladly give up an important public office he held for the +privilege of fighting with his hands, but he could not be tempted by an +opportunity to fight with his head. Through this same impulse many and +many a man attempted to conceal his special knowledge in order that he +might fight in the line. The Army Committee on Classification of +Personnel, which was in itself a beautiful example of scholarship in +practical application, was able, however, in most instances to pluck out +the expert from the line and set him, whether he was willing or not, at +the task for which he was particularly adapted and particularly needed. + + * * * * * + +What, from the point of view of the non-scholar, can be said as to the +general usefulness of the men and women (for the women did their share) +who came forward or were brought forward to take this trial by fire on +behalf of American scholarship? First of all, the scholar must be a real +scholar; he must have the natural ability and the long and rigorous +training necessary for accurate observation, and observation of the kind +which, if I may be forgiven a most unscholarly metaphor, includes the +ability to distinguish the blue chips from the white; his deductions +must be relentless, and his inductions must be luminous. That is asking +a good deal, and it would be enough if his dealings were to be with +other scholars or with scholars in the making. The papers of a leisurely +recluse can be dug out by others from the even more deliberately +published proceedings of learned societies, even as the author has dug +out those of his predecessors, and ultimately the practical application +of his discoveries will be made. In national emergency, however, this +process will not suffice. The scholar must descend from his tower; he +must, if he is to serve effectively, learn to think to order and to do +it rapidly, to deal with all sorts and conditions of men; he must bear +with their amazing ignorances and profit by their equally amazing +knowledge of things of which he is ignorant. He must know the art of +team play. The war has brought out a new type of scholarship, or at any +rate has developed it to such an extent that its implications are new, +and that is the unselfish cooperation of experts to meet a given and +usually an immediately pressing need. The development of the Liberty +motor furnishes a good example of the results of such cooperative +effort. It seems to me that the most important single lesson which our +scholars can learn from the experience of the two past years is the +importance of this team play in scholarship, and not only team play with +other scholars, but team play with those who have the equally valuable +and perhaps even rarer gift of getting things done, who perhaps deserve +the title of scholars in the control of time and space. The scholars who +made good were those who had had not only the training and temperament +for research, but the training and temperament for working with other +people. The scholarship of the man who from self-centeredness or from a +mistaken absorption in his specialty lacked the art of dealing with his +fellow men was likely to prove a sterile scholarship, and in most cases +a useless scholarship in the day of national need. + +One of the most dramatic things about the war was the speeding up of +supply and transport under the strong hand of the man who had brought +the Panama Canal to completion. General Goethals was no administrative +theorist. He was willing to try anything and anybody once, but he was +prompt in rejecting what did not promptly accomplish his purpose. An +engineer of General Goethals' distinction can be regarded as a scholar +in his particular field; but the point I want to make is that during his +service as Quartermaster-General, when officers of the regular army and +over-night majors, as they were called, presidents of manufacturing +plants, bankers and lawyers, were passing in what seemed to be an almost +unbroken procession through his office, he retained just two men in his +inner circle from first to last, and both were academic persons. Herbert +Hoover surrounded himself with scholars, entomologists, statisticians +and public health men. He did not always use them for their specialties, +but he evidently liked the type. The great welfare societies did the +same, and the list of academic men whom they used makes an impressive +total. + +These instances are typical of a very general success among scholars in +cooperating effectively and helpfully with eminently practical men. This +may be because the scholar has been trained in a form of competition +which the so-called practical man lacked. He is used to having his work +wiped out by some discovery of a rival, and having to begin afresh. He +is used to a checking of his work by his fellows which, if of a +different nature, is no less relentless than the war-time check in the +toll of human lives. The man of high reputation in business often failed +because he had learned to measure success and his own competence only in +terms of dividends, and in the new test he found his measuring-rod worse +than useless. + +Our scholars of the cooperative type not only pursued their researches, +but they got their military associates into the habit of thinking in +terms of scholarship. One of their most useful accomplishments, +initiated by a Doctor of Philosophy of this University, was the +organization of Thursday evening conferences for the discussion of the +new scientific and technical problems facing the Army and Navy. This +furnished a nucleus for the exchange of ideas between the different +research groups, both here and abroad; for scholarship was mobilized and +utilized in France, England, and Italy, as well as here, and our Allies +laid their scientific discoveries before us with the greatest loyalty. +At these conferences their reports were discussed and digested and +applied, instead of being pigeon-holed at the War College, as I fear +might have been otherwise the case. It was as a result of one of these +conferences that a member of this Chapter, acting on a hint which came +from a French report, was largely instrumental in developing a method of +submarine detection through sound-waves of a particular type, which, +though it came too late to be of service in the war, may serve in peace +to relieve the greatest terror of the mariner, the danger of collision +in darkness or fog with sister vessel or iceberg or derelict. A potent +factor in breaking down the barriers and delays of departmental +jealousies and bureaucratic tradition all along the line was the +free-masonry of the company of scholars in Washington. + +It must not be forgotten that our scholar in war worked under two +powerful stimuli, neither of them operative under ordinary conditions. +Although he was out of his accustomed setting, working with strange +people and at strange tasks, nevertheless the realization of the +national need and the joy of feeling an identification with the forces +facing the adversary tended to produce that fine frenzy which enables a +man to do better than he knows how. Then, for the first time in history, +the scholar had unlimited funds. It is an interesting subject for +speculation as to how he can ever go back to the limits of academic +appropriations. It is to be feared that in many cases he will not, but +will turn to industrial enterprises instead. If, however, there was an +unlimited supply of funds, there was a corresponding deficiency in time, +and the scholar who could not speed up to meet the new conditions had +little chance to make his mark. The men who failed in war because they +could not grasp the significance of the time factor may, however, still +be eminently useful in peace. On the other hand, the training which some +of our scholars received in meeting another war-time condition is likely +to have an important influence upon the relation of scholarship to +industry. Many a scholar found for the first time that to meet a given +condition a beautiful laboratory solution may be no solution at all, +that the answer, to be effective, must meet the peculiar condition of +quantity production. + +The merit of the Liberty engine, of which I have already spoken, lies +not alone in the excellence of its design, admirable as that is, but in +the fact that it is so constructed that we could produce fifteen hundred +of them in a single week. Or, to take another example, in 1914 we made +all together eighteen hundred field glasses in this country. Last +winter, thanks to the cooperation of the scholars in the chemistry of +glass and in the field of optics on the one hand, and of the experts in +quantity production on the other, we were making thirty-five hundred +pairs of field glasses each week. There are many other adaptations of +scholarship to industry that are awaiting similar practical solutions. +One of our most distinguished scholars in physics has said publicly that +the day is past when one can defend any distinction between pure and +applied science. One might as well try to distinguish between pure and +applied virtue. + +I said at the outset that I would venture later on an enlargement of the +conception of the American scholar, in the light of what the past two +years have made so clear. The scholar himself as well as those of us who +are not scholars, needs, I think, to get a somewhat broader conception +of the term; to develop it from its present popular connotation so that +the attributes which come to one's mind will no longer be the static and +selfish, but rather the dynamic and social. Emerson, in his essay on the +American Scholar, seems to have some prophetic glimpse of this broader +conception. He says, for example, that "action is with the scholar +subordinate, but it is essential; that without it, he is not yet man; +that the true scholar grudges every opportunity of action passed by, as +a loss of power"; and elsewhere, "that a great soul will be strong to +live, as well as strong to think." The old idea of the scholar was the +recluse, the individual; the new, it seems to me, should be one of a +company of builders, each bringing to the common task, for the general +welfare, his training and craft, his knowledge and ideas, to combine +them with the gifts which his fellows are bringing. + + * * * * * + +Thus far almost all my modern instances have been taken from the realms +of natural science. I need not remind you, however, that although +science has tremendously broadened the range of scholarship, +nevertheless the scholarship which is a practical asset is not and never +will be limited to natural science. The record of the past two years has +many an example of the essentially important work of scholars in other +fields. The records are not so clear-cut, the results are perhaps more +often negative; but the work was done and it counted. In the field of +public information our American scholars in the political sciences did +excellent work under the direction of a Doctor of Philosophy of this +University, and their record for fairness and sanity makes an enviable +contrast with the pathetic propaganda of the German intellectuals. +Similarly, the work of our Columbia scholars of the Legislative Drafting +Bureau proved of great value in formulating and, perhaps more important, +in discouraging legislation. + +In general, however, I think we ought to face the fact squarely that our +scholarship in man's relations with his fellow men, in his understanding +of himself and his fellows as contrasted with his mastery of physical +things, cannot claim so clear-cut a decision. Even in science we should +not set too great store by ourselves. Professor, late Colonel, Millikan +writes: "The contribution of the United States in research and +development lines was less, far less in proportion to our resources and +population, than that of England or France, and this in spite of the far +heavier strain under which they were laboring." And yet, with us, +science was better mobilized, better equipped, and can make a better +showing than the humanities. Part of this can be readily explained by +the statement that preparation for war is after all engineering on a +huge scale. But we must not prove too much if we are to profit by the +lesson. For example, the war found us utterly unprepared in +foreign-language knowledge; and we are still unprepared. How many real +Americans, I don't mean recent immigrants, but men and women with our +traditions and our point of view, can speak Russian? How many can speak +the languages of the Near East or Far East? + +Excellent work has been done by individual philosophers, economists, and +sociologists in labor questions, in welfare work, on the war-time trade +and industrial boards; but as a whole our scholars in these fields did +not dominate the situation as did the men of science in theirs. Of +course, their task was infinitely harder. For one thing, though we may +be ready to confess our ignorance of calculus or colloidal chemistry or +thermo-dynamics, we all believe in the validity of our off-hand +judgments in politics and morals, and indeed in all the springs of human +conduct. Yet when all allowances are made, the fact remains that there +is a scholarship in these matters and we have American scholars in them, +but that with distinguished exceptions these professionals permitted the +man in the street or the man in the editor's chair, or in Congress, or +in the Cabinet, to proclaim his amateur pronouncement and to get away +with it. Indeed, I will go further and say that not a few who know or +ought to know that it is not necessary to be intolerant in order to be +patriotic seemed to set their knowledge upon this point at one side. In +war time it is a matter for the scholar's judgment and conscience to +decide whether it is wise to attempt a leadership which at the moment +will be misunderstood and probably ineffective, possibly even dangerous, +because of the reaction, to the cause he has at heart; or to bide his +time in silence, awaiting a more suitable time to be heard. But I submit +that he is sinning against the light when he joins in the hue and cry of +the untrained and the half-trained. The war has given the natural +scientist his chance, and he has profited thereby. In the years to come +the test will, I think, shift to the scholars in the human sciences. The +crises of the future will have to do with problems of human conduct +rather than of the control of physical things; and, as these crises +come, our scholars in human relations should be more ready for the call +to mobilize. + +In practically every case the instances that I have given of the +successful tests of our scholarship involve the work of a member of Phi +Beta Kappa or of the sister society, Sigma Xi; and I therefore may be +permitted to say a word more directly to our younger members of the +society of those seeking the philosophy of life, to our Columbia +scholars in the making. In my time, which, by the way, was just +twenty-one years ago, a man who wanted to live the life of a scholar was +practically limited to teaching as the means of making his living. The +result in the way of incompetent and halfhearted teaching we all know. +Let me say to you of to-day that unless you want to teach, there is no +reason under heaven why you should do so. There are plenty of other +means of earning an honest living. The scholar is not nowadays limited +to the academic halls. We have scholars of the first quality not only in +special research institutions, but in government bureaus and in +industrial organizations. The men in government service who could be +spared from their other responsibilities for war work made an excellent +war record. On the other hand, we want to remember that the real +teacher, whether in the faculty or out of it, has a tremendous +advantage in the art of presentation. During the war the effectiveness +of our scholar teachers was well tested by an entirely new set of +pupils, pupils sometimes with eagles or stars on their shoulders, or in +the civil field, captains of industry, clad in the glittering armor of a +big business reputation. + +Nowadays one cannot be a scholar in general. One has to have some +specialty. As to what that specialty shall be in terms of usefulness to +the community, I think I have given you examples enough to show that the +range is almost unlimited. I had planned to sum up this by a brief +record of the discovery and application to war purposes of helium; but I +find that one of my own students in Columbia College, now a member of +the Geological Survey, has beaten me out; and you can find the whole +story in the May issue of the _National Geographic Magazine_. I cannot +resist, however, a summary of the steps. First, the astronomer, just +about the time this chapter was established, finds a new line in the +solar spectrum. Thirty years later, the geologist comes upon an unusual +stone and turns to a great chemist for its analysis, with the consequent +recognition of helium as a mundane element. About the same time comes +its identification as one of the newly recognized ingredients of the +air, and the study of its properties. Then a Kansas chemist discovers +its presence in some natural gas about which he was consulted because it +would not burn properly. Then comes the war with its incendiary bullet +and the need of a non-inflammable content for balloons and dirigibles. +Then the cooperation of physicist, engineer, and geologist--Canadian and +American--makes helium available for this purpose. Before these +researches helium cost $1700 a cubic foot and was obtainable only in +Germany. The present price is 10 cents a cubic foot, and it is falling. +The importance of all this for peace is very great. In these days of +airplane hops we are forgetting that a Zeppelin made the trip from +Bulgaria to what should have been German East Africa with medicines and +ammunition. The Germans having disappeared in the meantime, the Zeppelin +turned around and came back, making a continuous voyage of several +thousand miles. + +But do not forget that not all scholars made good in the great test. Let +me sum up what I have already said. In the first place, to be useful the +scholarship must be sound. The near-scholar, the man who took the +short-cut in preparation, proved to be a positive danger. The mere +expert in some narrow field, the man who did not realize the +implications of what he knew, was relatively useless. A man to succeed +had to be intense without being narrow. Even among the sound scholars, +the men who really knew, the isolated and insulated individual could +very rarely make much headway. It was the open-minded scholar, the maker +and keeper of friends, who got his chance, the scholar whose learning +was to him a living thing, not necessarily to be displayed in the market +place, and never for the sake of the display, but on the other hand +never wrapped in a napkin and buried in the earth. + +Will the scholar, now that his practical worth has been tested and +proved, be content to slip back into relative obscurity; or will he, on +the other hand, be tempted too far into the limelight and thereby lose +those very qualities which gave him his value? Will he be satisfied with +positions of leadership rather than leadership itself, which may be a +very different thing? It is largely for you young men and young women of +the rising generation of scholars to say. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 2: An address delivered before the New York Delta of Phi Beta +Kappa at Columbia University upon the fiftieth anniversary of the +establishment of the Chapter, June 3, 1919.] + + + + +WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?[3] + + +I am going to try to select three or four general fields in which we +Americans have had a chance to learn lessons of permanent value as the +result of our war experience. Then I shall try to apply these to what +seems to me the most typical specimen of the best in American life, a +great American University; and finally, I shall try to apply them to the +situation which faces you young men and women of the graduating class as +you step out to take your places in the world. And in so doing I'm going +to look deliberately on the bright side. There are troubles enough in +the world to worry and depress us, and we have to face them, but let us +face them with a confidence that is justified in the light of the +examples of man's endurance, of his courage, of his possibilities of +accomplishment, which it has been our privilege to witness within the +lifetime of this academic generation. + +What have we learned? In the first place, we have learned that as a +nation we possess the power to see a big job through, and we possess it +because we have the qualities of youth--enthusiasm, learning capacity, +energy, elasticity, initiative--the pioneering spirit. We have the +shortcomings of youth also--impatience, superficiality, improvidence, +cock-sureness--but when the test came we managed to strengthen our +virtues and to a large extent to overcome our failings. + +The various stocks that have emigrated to our shores have come as +successive waves of pioneers, of men to whom new and unfamiliar +conditions serve as an incentive rather than a discouragement, and it is +the persistence of this pioneering spirit, essentially a youthful +spirit, which has had much to do with our success. + +What single group made the finest impression in the great war? I think +we will agree that it was the American doughboy. As one saw him in +France he was absolutely youth incarnate, and he is a cross section of +our complex population. If anyone still doubts that all of these stocks, +the Teutonic included, have been willing to do their share even at the +risk or cost of life, let him read any of the lists of battle +casualties or the list of honors for heroic conduct and he will have the +best kind of proof. Let us remember in this connection that nearly +one-fourth of our drafted men couldn't speak and write English +adequately when they entered the Army. In spite of a number of unsightly +pieces of slag, which are either floating on the surface or have sunk to +the bottom, the great national melting pot has evidently done its work +well. + +Our heterogeneous immigration, our enormous national resources, which +have tempted us to live on capital rather than on interest, our +prosperity, have made us neither fat nor flabby. We now know that as a +people we don't really care about money or the money game if we are +shown some other game better worth playing; that selfishness and luxury +drop away as if by magic when they interfere with the keener +satisfactions of giving one's self. Even for us stay-at-homes, the +Liberty Loan people, Mr. Hoover, the Red Cross and other welfare workers +were on hand to show us how to play the better game. I don't need to +remind you of the details, nor that in spite of human grumbling and talk +of sacrifice, in the bottom of our hearts we all enjoyed the process. + +In the second place, we have learned that to see the job through we need +all of the nation, men and women, not merely the profession of arms and +the mysterious powers of finance--we need all of everyone. We need them +not as individuals but as a team, and we have learned that we can +develop team play. + +Our easiest jobs were the raising of our men and our money; our hardest, +the moulding of the whole into an organic unity. Just as our young men +by the millions took their place in the line when the bugle blew, older +men by the tens of thousands left their private affairs to get along as +best they might, and regardless of political affiliations or personal +convenience, found place for themselves in the administrative army. And +they were ably seconded by the women. Hundreds of men in key positions +have gladly borne witness to the share which their secretaries and their +other women associates played in bringing about the needed results. + +The first days of the war were days of whirling confusion, colored by +glowing forecasts. Then followed months of experimentation, by trial and +error, of hope deferred by long delays, of well meant but none the less +embarrassing internal rivalries, of sudden spurts. Later came the days +of last autumn, when the whole great machine was throbbing rhythmically +and steadily, with only a minor "knock" here and there--a sure +indication to the watchful enemy, who had had more than a taste of what +the machine could produce, that the game was up; and finally the +eleventh of November and the order to reverse the engines. + +It ought to be evident from our experience that for any great enterprise +we need all the young men and the young women, and all the older ones +who are still young in heart. We need to know who they are, where they +are, what they can do, and we need to touch them at every point; for not +only do we need them all, but we need all of each one of them. We should +never again face a great national crisis with nearly one-third of our +men of military age unfit for hard physical work. We need campaigns of +physical education and social hygiene, and we need to apply the lessons +in human salvage which the army has learned during the war. But we need +more than each individual and all of him. We must see to it that the +individual star, of whatever magnitude, is subordinated to the team play +of the group. And team play means more than energy and "pep." It means +a marshalling of the old fashioned and homely virtues of courtesy, +deference and consideration. + + * * * * * + +In the third place, we have learned that to accomplish a great result we +need the leadership of those who know and who know vividly and +constructively. Our experience has been that in certain fields, finance, +science, manufacturing in quantity production, medicine, we had a supply +of those who knew. In other fields, in intimate knowledge of foreign +conditions and foreign languages for example, we had not. + +At first we didn't know where our leaders were, and in many cases we +began by following false prophets. The value of one man with training, +brains and persistence can be shown by a single example: There was a man +who answered these qualifications connected with the Council of National +Defence, not in a very exalted position. He was the first in all this +country to see that the army program and the shipping program did not +fit. It took him a long time to convince the two groups of overworked, +harried officials that neither could play the game alone; that the +closest cooperation was necessary. He had no access to the records, but +he finally managed to build up a convincing statement out of the shreds +of information which he gathered here and there, and at last he +succeeded in getting everyone concerned into the attitude of wanting to +face the facts. Everyone would have had to face them sooner or later, +but without the devotion and leadership of this one man, it would have +been only as the result of a very serious dislocation of function. + +One field in which the right leadership has been most brilliantly +rewarded is that of medicine. Just consider what we have done in this +field: The success of the anti-typhoid injections; the reduction in +dysenteric diseases due to chlorination of drinking water; the +encouraging fight against cerebro-spinal meningitis and pneumonia; the +identification of trench fever, and the practical freedom from typhus. +As to wounds, a tetanus antitoxin which has made lock-jaw almost a +negligible disease; a serum against gas gangrene; the Carrel-Dakin +method of chemical sterilization of wounds; the splinting of fractures +on the battle field and overhead extension apparatus in the hospital. To +quote Simon Flexner, "The entire psychology of the wounded men was +altered, the wards made cheerful and happy, pain abolished, infection +controlled, and recovery hastened by means of the new or improved +surgical and mechanical measures put into common use." + + * * * * * + +The fourth lesson of which I wish to speak is that a high aim and ideal +is what counts most of all, what lifts the individual up from +selfishness and sloth. To bind the country together and to make the +transformation which still seems miraculous, we had a noble national +aim, a complete dedication to the task before us, an utter absence of +any selfish or self-seeking factor in the whole enterprise. The conduct +of our soldiers, their submission to a discipline to which most of them +were completely unused was, I think, in a very large measure due to the +recognition of this aim. We recognized it as a nation and we recognized +it in one another. The standard of contact set by our soldiers during +the days of conflict is unique in military history. Whole divisions went +for months without a single court-martial. The reason was, more than +anything else, the national assumption that they would give a good +account of themselves and the fact that they felt themselves in +training for the championship, and no man wanted to miss his chance on +the battlefield for the sake of a selfish indulgence. + +Some of the experiments in conduct tried in the American Expeditionary +Forces were extraordinary in their success. The leave areas, an immense +enterprise, were run on the basis of absolute freedom to the enlisted +man. He lived in the best hotels in Europe and amused himself in casinos +where crowned heads had been in the habit of gambling away the money of +their subjects. He had no roll calls, no taps, no officers in sight, no +military machinery whatever. He arose when he pleased, either before or +after his breakfast; he ate and drank when he pleased, and he stayed out +as late as he pleased. The physical and moral effect of this absolute +change from the military regime was a very interesting and instructive +phenomenon, but that is not the point I wish to make. Out of the +thousands and thousands of men who were sent to these leave areas, there +was hardly a single case in which a man abused the trust which was put +upon him or failed to turn up on time to go back to the grind of +military duty. This could never have been done with soldiers of another +type, with soldiers lacking an ideal. + +Someone has recently written that fine minds have been finely touched by +the war, and base minds basely. He might have added that wise minds have +been wisely touched, and foolish minds foolishly. In general, I think it +may fairly be said that when the appeal was to the finest in a man's +character, the result was correspondingly fine. + + * * * * * + +These, it seems to me, are the four main things we have learned, or at +any rate we have had a chance to learn. First, that we are a real +nation, potentially strong with the strength of youth. Second, that to +fulfill our mission, every man and woman and all of every such +individual is an object of national concern; that we must be mobilized +and we must continue our lessons in team play. We have still plenty to +learn in this field. Third, that we must have and must recognize the +leadership of those who know, which, after all, is the great test of a +democracy. Fourth, that to bring out the best that is in us, as +individuals and as a nation, we must have an aim, high, clear-cut and +clearly understood. If, now, I attempt to apply these four lessons which +we have had a chance to learn, to educational conditions, and +particularly to university conditions, it will be for three reasons: The +first is the general wisdom of confining one's remarks to things he +knows something about. The second, that there is no single institution +more characteristic of the best in our American life than a great +American University. And there is this third reason, that if we had not +had a supply of young men with the stamp of the American college upon +them, we could never have met the call for officers, for nearly a +quarter of a million of them. I am told that the Germans were prepared +to admit and to discount our wealth in money, in materials and in man +power, but they looked forward confidently to a complete failure on our +part in training officers to lead our men in battle. Of course, all the +citizen officers who made good records were not college men, but the +college trained citizens were the men who set the pace and made the +standard. + +It was Pitt who said, "The atrocious crime of being a young man I shall +attempt neither to palliate nor to deny." Nor should a university seek +to palliate or to deny the charge of being a place of resort for youth. +A university, it seems to me, should be a place where the primary object +is not the repression of youthful exuberance nor the correction of +youthful failings (though both may be necessary on occasion), but +rather, a place for the encouragement of the great and vital qualities +of youth--enthusiasm, energy, power of acquisition, sensitiveness of +impression. It is the place where the older members of the community +have the best chance to stay young. The university should be essentially +a company of enthusiasts, of pioneers. There is a frontier for every +worker to clear--no matter how narrow or how wide his horizon may be. In +a university there is no proper place, among faculty or students, for +the disillusioned, the cynical, the defeatist. + + * * * * * + +Now we come to the application of the second lesson, the lesson of +mobilization, of team play. In the first place, no university is alive +where mobilization is limited to the Recorder's office. In a live +institution, regent, professor, student, janitor, each is a part of the +game and must feel that he is. He must feel that in its administration +the institution has learned the great lesson of direct and human +personal contact. Science, among all its triumphs, cannot include any +device for conveying a message from mind to mind or from heart to heart +half so good as the human voice and the human eye. Within the faculty, +this element of human cooperation should be reflected by the vitality of +the organism rather than by the complexity of the organization, which +may not be vital at all. Each member must feel that the general repute +is safeguarded by honest and intelligent standards, honestly and +intelligently administered. The university, like the country at large, +must make itself responsible for all of each and every student, his +bodily condition, for example, just as directly as his mental. + +It will be recalled that one of my justifications for applying war +experiences to university conditions was the share which the college and +university men had in building up our supply of officers. If we study +why the college men made good officers, and make allowance for the fact +that it is the kind of man who goes to college who is likely to make a +good officer anyway, and all the other allowances we can think of, we +can't dodge the conclusion that there is something outside of the +college curriculum which has been an important factor in bringing about +the results. On the other hand, important as the other factors are, the +curriculum has had its share, and it is in my judgment a leading and +not always an adequately recognized share. The comfortable theory that +once he has settled down to something important the college +ne'er-do-well will suddenly blossom forth into a competent leader of men +didn't work out in practice. It may have happened here and there, but it +didn't happen as a general rule. In the fighting line, it was very +generally the man with a sound academic record, not necessarily the Phi +Beta Kappa lad, but the good scholar and active college citizen, the man +who had taken the trouble to learn things and learn people, who made the +best record. I naturally watched with particular interest the records of +my own old students at Columbia, and I know that this is so. + + * * * * * + +It is a significant fact, however, for those of us who are interested in +the welfare of college boys and girls, that the United States government +deliberately built up what was to all intents and purposes an +undergraduate college life for the young men of the army, with +athletics, dances, dramatics, singing, and all the rest, even including +opportunities for reading and study. Even the most hardened of regular +officers, who at the first, I fear, regarded this as some of the +civilian foolishness with which all soldiers have to contend, came to +see that the program was a vital factor in building up such a body of +fighting men as they had never seen. And this is only another way of +saying that if you want to use the human machine for any purpose, you +must concern yourself with the whole of it. Human nature does not come +in air-tight compartments. + +President Wilson coined a phrase which has thoroughly gone the rounds +when he said that the side-shows of college life should not overshadow +nor distract from the entertainment in the main tent. We all agree to +this. But I think we are more inclined than when the words were spoken +to urge that the side-shows, properly and intelligently subordinated, +should be under the same management as the main tent. The army has tried +the experiment on a large scale and it has worked well. In February last +there were in France and on the Rhine six million and a half individual +participants in athletic games, ten million attendants on +entertainments, nearly a quarter of a million students. + + * * * * * + +None of the lessons which the Army has learned are more significant +than those which have to do with mobilization and classification. The +activities of the Provost Marshal General, of the Committee on +Classification and Personnel, in cooperation with the Committee on +Education, furnish the best record of large scale human engineering in +the new science of personnel of which we have any record, either in this +country or, I think, elsewhere. + +A university like this one is an army, and not such a small army either, +judging by peacetime standards. The United States found that it was +worth while, indeed that it was absolutely necessary in organizing its +forces, to find out everything it could about every man in the army, +what he needed physically to increase his efficiency; what he needed to +keep him interested and out of mischief; what he should have in the way +of training--based on what he knew already and based on careful mental +tests--to make him of the greatest usefulness; whether he had the will +to win, and if not, whether anything could be done to get it into him. + +In a word, the United States wanted to know just what each man's +possibilities were. Was he officer material or non-com material? Should +he go into the line or one of the special corps--or to the labor +battalion? As a result of this program, the Army succeeded in finding a +place that counted for 98 per cent of the drafted men. + +Now I realize that a university can't do all these things with its army +in just the way the government can. It can't casually transfer a man +from engineering to psychology, nor a girl from philosophy to +cookery--or _vice versa_--no matter how desirable such a transfer might +be for the individual and the community. But it can do a great deal more +than it now does in finding out about all its members, informing them of +their strength and weaknesses, in seeing that every student gets a +chance to enjoy in so far as possible the high privileges of youth, and +to get a helping hand over the bumps in the road, which also come with +youth. Every student ought to have the opportunity to round out his +character and his capacities. It ought not to be left to chance that any +student gets the best personal contacts for him or her with faculty and +fellow-students, the best opportunities for learning team play. Every +student ought to leave with some definite aim in life, and if possible +an aim high enough to be an ideal that is worth working for. + +A university is not doing its full duty if its athletics and social life +are limited to those who need these the least; if its alumni are +regarded merely as fillers of the grandstands or recipients of oratory, +and possible sources of pecuniary support. The alumni are the best +possible sources of keeping the faculty informed as to what the world +really wants in the way of trained men and women, and, for the students, +of information, suggestions, and jobs, both temporary and permanent. + +I realize that many of these things are now done here and elsewhere, but +in the light of what we have learned from the experience of the +University of Uncle Sam, I am sure that our American universities and +colleges have hardly scratched the surface of what they might do and +what, I think, they will ultimately do in the realm of human +engineering. Nearly all educational institutions merely follow what they +find the leaders are doing, and in this field there is an opportunity, I +am sure, for real leadership. + +We know now that men and women can be measured by impersonal tests and +that it is practicable to put aside the material which it is either +impossible to fashion in the academic mould, or for which, even if the +job is possible, the expense in wear and tear is entirely beyond the +value of the result to be obtained. To be specific, why shouldn't we +have an intelligence test of candidates for the degree of Doctor of +Philosophy, just as we had a physical and psychological examination for +candidates for the flying schools? + +I don't mean that we should leap from one illogical position clear +across the road into another. Mental measurements are not yet an exact +science, and a man of moderate ability, with a will to succeed, may be a +better academic investment than his more brilliant brother who lacks +that quality; but, by pruning very sparingly (one does not have to chop +down a tree to prune it) the saving in time and energy will be enormous. + +Fundamentally the human relationships are what count, the qualities +leading to team play and cooperation, and away from isolation and its +ills. This means that if a faculty is to exercise its leadership, it +must know the student body, it must maintain and develop points of human +touch. Impersonal tests, impersonal records, all that modern practice +and modern science can teach us we must have, but these must be used +only as the framework for what is after all the fundamental thing, +direct human contact between teacher and teacher, teacher and student, +and student and student. + + * * * * * + +Now as to leadership, and in a university we can identify the leaders +with the teachers, there is no doubt, I think, that the teachers' +profession comes out of the war in a higher place than it went in, and +the scholar goes back to his work with a feeling of confidence in +himself in view of his record in competition and comparison with men in +other callings. I venture to predict that we shall hear a good deal less +frequently in the future the old gibe that the man who could do things +did them and the man who couldn't, taught them. The teachers made good, +not only because of their scholarship, but because of their personality. +I think this experience of the last two years is going to accelerate +greatly the movement which had already started of turning to the +academic world for the man who can do things and do them with other +people. Entirely apart from the contrasts in income, the sheer fun of +executive work, with plenty of money to spend on what you want to get +done, is a pretty strong temptation for a man with a heavy teaching +schedule and an annual department appropriation of say $75. Both the +regular army officers who have made conspicuously good, and the scholars +of the cooperative type who have made conspicuously good, are being +actively bidden for by bankers and manufacturers and all sorts of +people. Neither profession can compete on the purely financial side with +these tempters and, in order to hold their first-rate men, they will +each have to make some greater contribution in the things that money +alone can't buy. + +Both in the nation and in our republics of letters and science, we must +learn to distinguish more clearly between the power that comes with +knowledge, and the ability to talk about things. It was very interesting +to watch in Washington the gradual substitution of the man with the +latter quality by the man with the former in positions of +responsibility, and I am going to confess that, in the early days, some +of the conferences which it was my privilege or my duty to attend, +reminded me for all the world of certain faculty meetings, in which +gentlemen without definite knowledge of the matter in hand were +discussing at considerable length what they were pleased to call +principles, but which were really off-hand impressions. + +I think that in their service to the university and to the nation, the +scholars may well profit by the demonstration that it was not only the +man who knew his subject, but the man who knew how to deal with his +fellow men, who was likely to make his impression. Isn't there such a +thing as academic provincialism, even within the walls of a man's own +university, certainly as between institution and institution, which can +be remedied by the encouragement of these social and cooperative sides +of the scholar's character? It seems to me that we all should face a +fundamental extension in the definition of a scholar, away from the +individual, the selfish, out to the social and constructive. + +In our educational institutions scholarship has three functions: To +broaden the field of existing knowledge, and the war has shown us that +every field has its valuable practical applications; to train the coming +generation of experts, and any country needs not only a handful of +distinguished leaders but a great body of well-trained men and women +who, when the emergency arises, stand ready to meet it; and last but not +least, to inspire a recognition of what scholarship is and a respect for +it in the minds of the general students, few of whom, by the most +generous stretch of the imagination, can be regarded as scholars +themselves, but whose influence in their generation throughout the +country is a very important factor. Our nation needs a respect for +expert knowledge and it needs a respect for intelligence, and our +college graduates can do more than any other group to develop this +respect. + + * * * * * + +We have taken up three of our four lessons as these affect the +university: the emphasis on youth, the need of mobilization and team +play, and the need of leadership. There remains the fourth factor, a +high, clear-cut aim. + +The most serious charge against the American undergraduate in the past +has been the lack of a sense of responsibility. We now know from their +war records that the sense of responsibility lay latent in thousands of +these boys and was only awaiting an impulse sufficiently strong to +arouse it. + +President Hibben of Princeton, who ought to know the American +undergraduate if anybody does, said recently: "Young men are capable of +far greater amounts of intensive work day in and day out than we had +dreamed of; capable of greater concentration of mind upon their tasks. +They respond more quickly than we have conceived to the call of duty. +The sense of responsibility is there latent, and we teachers must +endeavor to quicken and to appeal to it. We have seen that when the +occasion comes these young men rise to meet it." + +We can't very well stage a world war for the purpose, and I don't think +we need wait for any such crisis to bring it out. There is in every +normal, wholesome-minded student some motor nerve that can be touched in +such a way as to release that type of coordinated energy which we call a +sense of responsibility. This all goes back to knowing our men and women +and establishing human contacts and human confidences. + +In spite of individual disappointments, and as a college dean, I have +had my share, I am confident that the normal young American either +already possesses as a motive force some worth-while aim or that he can +be guided toward such an aim if approached in the right way. + +Let me quote a paragraph or so from the report of the War Department +Committee on Education: + +"Because the war did completely organize the nation for a united drive +and thus did expose a magnificent national morale, many are inclined to +believe that war is necessary to call forth such consecration and +self-forgetful service. Analysis of the war training, however, reveals a +point of view and a method of procedure that is definitely designed to +develop team-play and to enhance morale whether there be war or not. If +these methods are applied to education in times of peace, they certainly +will produce some effect even though the result is not as profoundly +striking as it was during the war. Among the many significant features +of war training, the following are mentioned as worthy of particular +consideration for transfer to school practice: + +"As a primary policy, a nation at war is obliged to recognize that every +individual is an asset capable of useful service in some particular line +of work of direct benefit to the country. In order to make the most +efficient use of all its resources, it is necessary to make strenuous +exertions to discover what each individual is best qualified to do and +to train each to use his abilities in the most effective manner. Applied +to education this fundamental attitude produces two results that are of +importance in the development of morale. The teacher's point of view +shifts from a critical one, with attention focused on discovering +whether the individual measures up to the academic standards fixed by +school authorities, to one of friendly, not to say eager interest to +discover what each individual really can do well. The student's spirit +also changes from one of discouragement and doubt of his ability ever to +make good, to one of interest and desire for achievement. Both of these +results are of large importance in releasing energy for both the teacher +and the student. They also have an immediate bearing on the enhancement +of morale." + +In any place of campaign to this end within a college or university, the +first thing to do is to build around that vague but very real emotion +called college spirit, to supplement this by guiding our young people to +enlist in worth-while, nation-wide or world-wide causes (we are +singularly provincial about this in America), and by ensuring better +teaching and supervision and better coordination of work. + +There is no question that we have underestimated both the American +undergraduate's capacity for intellectual work and his real pleasure in +it when he feels it worth while. One of my friends was telling me of +his experiences as commanding officer of one of the ground schools for +aviators, where a large proportion of the candidates were college +undergraduates, and I asked him if he had had any troubles as to +discipline. "Yes indeed," he replied, "night after night we'd catch some +fellows studying with a peep-light under their blankets, after taps had +sounded." + +Any doubts as to the instinctive reaction of the normal, healthy young +American toward educational opportunities were dispelled by the +experiences of the army in France after the armistice. The let-down, +after the terrific physical and emotional strain, the impatience +regarding any delay as to return home, combined to make a pretty serious +situation as to the morale of our troops. After some misguided and +nearly disastrous experiments as to the curative properties of heavy +drill and strict discipline, the A.E.F. recognized the necessity for a +prompt and thorough stimulation of all the welfare activities, and a +real educational program; and it was straight, old-fashioned book-work +more than it was the movies, or athletics, more even than Miss Elsie +Janis, which turned the corner for us. In all, more than 200,000 men +volunteered for the privilege of studying. The military order was often +reversed and majors sat at the feet of the corporals or privates who had +been selected as teachers. The reports as to the intensity of the work +of teachers and students alike should put any of us professionals to +shame. + + * * * * * + +Just now we are hearing a great deal about the benefits of discipline. I +think what the speakers are really talking about, though they don't +recognize it themselves, is the benefit of the state of mind which +accepts and welcomes discipline. We are not, even as the result of the +war, a disciplined people in the sense that Germany is, or was, and we +can thank God for it. We shall never want in this country a general +subordination of the individual will and initiative to external control. +Discipline is a means and not an end. If discipline, as such, externally +imposed, were so important a factor in success as many people seem to +think to-day, we could look through a list of ex-enlisted men in the +army and navy--I mean the men enlisted and discharged during peace +time--and find a relatively large number who made conspicuously good +records after returning to civil life. As a matter of fact, we find +nothing of the kind. + +What we do find is that not a few enlisted men who chose the army or the +navy as their permanent career have won commissions and made fine +records. There were no better general officers in the war than men like +Harbord of our army and Robertson of the British, both of whom rose from +the ranks. But isn't it fair to say that the discipline imposed on these +men was accepted gladly and accepted in the terms of their fundamental +interest, and that these men are not really exceptions to what I have +said? + +I venture to predict that there will be a very different record to tell +as to the success in civil life of those men now leaving the Army, who, +because they believed in the cause and wished to participate to the full +in the great enterprise, gladly submitted themselves to the discipline +for the purpose of increasing their efficiency. + +In a month or so you can teach an enthusiastic man, who is fired by a +big idea, all the discipline he needs for carrying out his duties and +profiting by his opportunities, but you can't reverse the process and +incite enthusiasms as a result of the application of discipline. + +Don't think that I want to minimize the merits of military discipline +for military purposes. Of course, coordination and subordination are +absolutely necessary in the handling of large bodies of men. Even the +men in France who deserted to the front, as many of them did, no matter +how much we may sympathize with their desire to get into the game, had +to be disciplined. Someone had to stay behind and see to the supplies. +The point we are discussing is the carrying over of this principle of +military discipline intact into civilian life. So far as discipline +brings about regularity of life, of exercise, so long as it ministers to +alertness, we can use it, but as between discipline on the one hand, and +initiative and team play on the other, to meet our academic or our +national needs, I am for initiative and team play. + +Please don't misunderstand me. By reducing the present emphasis on +external discipline, after childhood has been passed, I don't mean a +lowering of standards. External discipline, it seems to me, is often +really imposed as a substitute for high standards; something supposed to +be just as good and more easy to keep in stock. The standards of the +worth-while organization, and these are the outward expression of its +aims, its ideals, ought to be high enough and intelligently enough +administered to make sure that the men and women who are unable to +provide their own discipline, should in the general interest be +painlessly but promptly removed from the group. + +Here is a _credo_ for the American people, from the pen of a regular +army officer. It's a pretty good one for an American University: "To +foster individual talent, imagination and initiative, to couple with +this a high degree of cooperation, and to subject these to a not too +minute direction; the whole vitalized by a supreme purpose, which serves +as the magic key to unlock the upper strata of the energies of men." + + * * * * * + +Finally, let me try to apply these lessons to you young men and women of +the graduating class. + +Keep in good physical shape. Overwork is usually a combination of bad +air, bad feeding, and lack of exercise and sleep. See that you don't go +stale. If you lack the zest of life, find out what the trouble is; +whether it is your teeth or your liver or your soul. Picture to yourself +what Theodore Roosevelt got out of life. + +Be honest with yourself. Do your own thinking and do it straight. This, +strangely enough, is perhaps the thing which you will find hardest to do +after the undergraduate atmosphere. A student body is, or at any rate +was before the war, the most convention ridden group of which I have any +knowledge. I am all for conventions, because they save a great deal of +time and worry, but only so far as we recognize them as conventions and +do not exalt them into principles or philosophical truths. Remember that +the public opinion of America is an infinitely more important thing to +the world than ever before, and that you are each to be a part of it. + +Keep your intellectual interests and your interest in your _alma mater_, +not in her athletics and her fraternities alone. Remember that as alumni +of this University you are citizens of no mean city. Recruit men and +women whom she ought to have and who ought to have her, remembering that +the danger to this country from the inside, and it is no inconsiderable +danger, is mainly due to the misdirected zeal of sincere people who lack +knowledge and background. Take for example the employer who can't see +beyond the point of telling his men to "take it or leave it," and the +workman whose sense of real or fancied injustice has brought him to what +with our children we know as the kicking and biting stage. It is too +late to do much with the present adult generation except by main +strength and awkwardness, but a recruit for higher education from either +of these groups is a good national investment. + +Keep your human contacts. Don't be a "glad-hander" but do at least your +share. It takes two to make and keep alive a friendship, just as it does +a quarrel. There is something worth while in everyone. Give yourself a +chance to find what it is. Practice following and, as the chance comes +to you, practice leading, but above all, practice team play. Keep +yourself ready to take the next step, whatever it may be. There is a +story of Marshal Joffre, of which I can at least say that it is good +enough to be true. After the first battle of the Marne some enthusiast +was proclaiming him as a second Napoleon and laying it on pretty thick. +The old gentleman stood it as long as he could and then said: "No, +Napoleon would have known what to do next, and I don't." + +Keep your enthusiasms and your ideals. In other words, keep your youth. +In choosing your life work, get into something in which the policy and +practice are such that you can throw your whole soul into the job. Don't +take yourself seriously, but take your opportunities for usefulness +seriously. Find out the callings in which America is short. There are +plenty of them, as the war has shown. Think over whether it isn't +possible for you to be one of the men or one of the women who, from your +training and momentum and vision, will be selected ten or fifteen or +twenty years hence, to take on some important job, with the nation as +your client, as the one person best qualified to fill it. + +We no longer have to prove that it pays to know, to really know almost +anything that is worth while. It pays in money, if that is what one +wants; it pays in the more enduring satisfactions of life, in the +pleasure that comes from exact knowledge and intellectual pioneering, in +the almost unique joy of creation without the responsibilities of +possession, and in the feeling of individual readiness to be of use in +meeting the problems which the years allotted to your generation will +surely bring forth. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 3: Commencement address delivered at the University of +Michigan, June 26, 1919.] + + + + ++-----------------------------------------------+ +| Transcriber's Note: | +| | +| Typographical error corrected in the text: | +| | +| Page 52 centerdness changed to centeredness | ++-----------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS*** + + +******* This file should be named 32608.txt or 32608.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/2/6/0/32608 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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