THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



DINING-ROOM OF THE RED CROSS CANTEEN AT THE GARE DE LEST, PARIS 



The Stars and Stripes and the Tricolor, which decorate the walls of this boon to tired 

 troops, are indicative of the fact that all the canteens in Paris, as well as those at the front 

 and at junction points along the lines of communication, are conducted under the joint direc- 

 tion of the American Red Cross and the French Government or the French Red Cross. 



who were most humane, most "reforma- 

 tory" — Dickens, Carlyle, George Eliot, 

 Ruskin. 



Dickens in particular had captivated 

 all England with his humanity as well as 

 with his humor, equally notable as hu- 

 morist and humanist, and, best of all, 

 basing an incorrigible optimism on the 

 brave assumption that human misery is 

 not "in the nature of things" and there- 

 fore unavoidable, but contrary to the na- 

 ture of things and therefore remediable. 



In one fascinating novel after another 

 he had thundered this doctrine, all the 

 more appealing because uttered in tones 

 of hilarious laughter, the doctrine that if 

 society would bestir itself society could 

 cure its own evils ; that where there is a 

 will there is a way. 



Never before, and perhaps never since, 

 lias a program of reform been so engag- 

 ingly and so convincingly promulgated, 

 literati and statesmen, ordinary readers 



and ordinary voters, all alike were con- 

 vinced that the world was well on its way 

 to a vast betterment through society's in- 

 telligent determination to take charge of 

 its own affairs. 



Then the articles in the Times broke 

 suddenly and rudely in on this optimism. 

 Here were British soldiers of the nine- 

 teenth century suffering like the soldiers 

 of the dark ages or of "savages of Daho- 

 mey." England's age-long military tra- 

 dition combined with her new-found hu- 

 manitarianism to stir the whole nation 

 into angry protest. Something must be 

 done ! But what? 



TWO PEOPLE SAW THE THING TO BE DONE 



Fortunately alike for the immediate 

 crisis and for the larger future, there 

 were two people in England who saw 

 clearly the thing that should be done — 

 Mr. Sidney Herbert, one of the Secre- 

 taries of the War Department, and Miss 



