THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



223 



sciousness of the fact that we are really 

 in war has but slowly been stealing over 

 our people as a psychological fact. 



The officers in command of the canton- 

 ments which I visited were general offi- 

 cers of the Regular Army. I had met 

 them and known them all in the Philip- 

 pines and in the War Office. They now 

 wore stars instead of the captains' bars 

 or majors' leaves which they wore in 

 Philippine days. They talked freely with 

 me about conditions, and with the in- 

 formation which they gave me and that 

 which I derived from the numerous 

 Y. M. C. A. secretaries, I feel that I ob- 

 tained fairly reliable information as to 

 conditions prevailing in the camps. I 

 soon became satisfied that the attitude of 

 the men toward the war and their service 

 in it, as reported to Dr. Mott, which had 

 induced him to ask me to make the trip, 

 had radically changed. It must have been 

 that his informants had sent word to him 

 at a time before the men had become ad- 

 justed to their camp life. 



THE FINEST MATERIAL IN THE WORLD FOR 

 THE MAKING OF AN ARMY 



The men when drafted were from 21 

 to 31; many of them had become more 

 or less settled in life. Many of them 

 were in receipt of compensation substan- 

 tially greater than that which they would 

 receive as private soldiers. The incon- 

 venience and lack of comforts insepara- 

 ble from a camp life they had not grown 

 used to, and they naturally were at first 

 in a state of protest and question over 

 the change. When I went through the 

 camps, however, they had grown accus- 

 tomed to camp life. In the drill and 

 manual training and instruction they had 

 begun to understand the government's 

 purpose and had become interested in fit- 

 ting themselves for their new duties. 



The commanders of the camps assured 

 me that the drafted men were the finest 

 material for the making of an army they 

 had ever seen in any country. On the 

 average they were better men physically, 

 mentally, and morally than the average 

 of the National Guard or of the Regular 

 Army. They were a clean slate to write 

 upon. They did not have to unlearn any- 

 thing and they learned quickly. They 

 manifested the known adaptability of the 



American. The difference between their 

 appearance when they first reached camp 

 and after three and four months' training 

 was wonderful. Their appearance in re- 

 view, as they went by with their lithe 

 figures, their martial bearing, their mili- 

 tary step, their bright, healthful color, 

 gave one a thrill of patriotic pride. Their 

 response, as they sat in a great audience, 

 to patriotic sentiment showed that their 

 hearts were in the right place. They are 

 an object-lesson in universal military 

 training and a powerful argument for its 

 establishment. 



EVERY SOLDIER MUST BE AN EXPERT 



The German has so changed the art of 

 war that every private soldier must learn 

 his trade as an expert. Through disci- 

 pline and practice he must acquire a 

 knowledge of the particular duty assigned 

 to him, so as to make his performance of 

 his proper function second nature. This 

 is being impressed upon them by their 

 own officers and by the English and 

 French officers, of whom there are eight 

 to ten in every camp. 



I ventured to point out in every speech 

 I made the importance of discipline and 

 practice and included a word on the ne- 

 cessity for the salute. The salute is said 

 to be descended from the salute which 

 one knight made to another in the days 

 of chivalry by lifting his visor. It is only 

 a' recognition by one member of the craft 

 of his association with another of the 

 same craft. It does not involve inferi- 

 ority or servility. The private salutes the 

 officer. The officer is one of higher rank. 

 The salute must be returned. The duty 

 of initiating the ceremony is a recognition 

 of subordination, a relation that must 

 exist in an army if an army is to be an 

 effective military machine and not a mob. 



The progress in military science has 

 been in the development of the machine- 

 like operation of the different parts of an 

 army. The private soldiers are cogs 

 working into other parts of the machine 

 and moving under control of their imme- 

 diate and higher commanders, as cogs act 

 with the wheels and other mechanism 

 with which they coordinate. The salute 

 is only a recognition of this relation of 

 association. It was interesting to watch 

 how the new men disregarded it and how 



