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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



if the lesson is not thrust upon him. The 

 Italian reaches out for information. A 

 Mexican, in studying a chart, will answer 

 stolidly and reluctantly, and then, after 

 class, will stand long and thoughtfully 

 before it. An Italian begins to talk be- 

 fore the chart is really in place and, given 

 a chart of Italy and an Italian class, the 

 passers-by out in the street will stop to 

 listen to the result. 



The question of who learns the more 

 quickly is easily answered. But we can- 

 not dispose so easily of the question 

 which deals with the wish to learn. 



And, indeed, after a very few days 

 with our charges, we stopped wondering 

 whether or not the foreigner wants to 

 learn his English. The terrible pity of 

 it is that we do not always realize in time 

 just how much he wants to learn. 



There was a man out at the remount 

 station who was pointed out to us as 

 sulky and indifferent. "The typical Mex- 

 ican," so the introduction ran. The 

 teacher took him in hand. He was coaxed 

 and prodded and "encouraged" for days, 

 and with each lesson grew more silent, 

 less responsive, more ill at ease. 



And then one day, when a question too 

 many had been hurled at him, suddenly 

 and without warning, — unless one choose 

 to take as warning his "stubbornness," 



his "unresponsiveness," his "stupidity" — 

 his head went down into his arms. And 

 in the silence which followed, as pupils 

 and teacher looked away from his shak- 

 ing shoulders, there rose a dreadful accu- 

 sation, which reached far beyond the 

 boundaries of Camp Kearny. 



It was, after all, very simple. The 

 class was getting away from him; he 

 could not keep up with the work and he 

 felt himself being left behind. He, too, 

 had come from New Mexico into the 

 United States. 



AFTER THE WAR 



After the war, whatever else may be, 

 the world will become a smaller place. 

 Geography will become a more friendly, 

 more intimate thing, more closely con- 

 nected with the every-day opportunities 

 of man. 



In those opportunities the foreigner at 

 home will have a share; the "foreign" 

 soldier will come "home" to them. What- 

 ever aid he may be given now toward a 

 better understanding of the world as a 

 whole will not be lost, especially when in 

 learning of the world he learns to speak 

 the English language a little more readily. 



And so we are glad we found on that 

 evening, in the store-room of the camp 

 library, the pile of the Geographics. 



RECENT OBSERVATIONS IN ALBANIA 

 By Brig. Gen. George P. Scriven, U. S. Army 



OF THE country in general, it may 

 be said that Albania, as delim- 

 ited by the maps existing before 

 the war, is now under control of the Ger- 

 mans, the Austrians, and the Bulgars to 

 the north of the latitude of Berat and the 

 lakes, and under control of the French 

 and the Italian troops to the south. The 

 Greeks as yet have no control within the 

 boundaries established by the Conference 

 of London, while the English and the 

 Serb theaters of operations lie in Mace- 

 donia. 



The western part of southern Albania 

 (soon perhaps all of west Albania, if the 

 present Italian success carries on) is the 



more important section on account of the 

 richness of the valleys and the value of 

 the harbors on the Adriatic Sea. This 

 territory is in the hands of the Italians, 

 and is the part of Albania which forms 

 the crux of the problem under considera- 

 tion. Its disposition will determine the 

 future fate of the country, for I believe 

 that as this region goes so will Albania 

 as a whole go. It would be idle as well 

 as wrong to attempt to break asunder this 

 numerically small but homogeneous race 

 of mountaineers. 



The sector occupied by the Italian 

 troops at the present writing runs north 

 of the river Viosa (also called the Voi- 



