Sam's uniform is a marvelous leveler. When the war is over, the young men who are to bear the burdens of the future will understand each other better because of their Army associations, and will work together for the elimination of the evils of our country and the promotion of equality in service for the building up of a free people.

I go back to my regular pastorate with a new feeling of admiration for our men in uniform and a greater pride in my

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country. I go back with a new inspiration to labor harder for
the ideals of the kingdom of God and to keep the "home fires
burning." I have a deeper sense of the worth of the Church, and
feel that she is largely responsible for the splendid new spirit in
our Army. I am more than ever convinced that the real task of
the Church is to inspire men with the ideals and spirit of Jesus
Christ rather than to be concerned as an organization with the
political policies and affairs of the Nation.

II-MAKING MEDICAL OFFICERS OUT OF DOCTORS
LIFE AT THE FORT RILEY TRAINING CAMP
JR., M.D., MAJOR M.R.C.

BY ELLSWORTH ELIOT,

HE rapid expansion of the Medical Department of the new American Army is most essential, and yet the special courses of instruction to convert the civilian medical prac titioner into an efficient army medical officer have been conducted since the beginning of the war in a way so inconspicuous that they have attracted little if any attention. For this training and instruction several large camps have been established. One of the largest is at Fort Riley, Kansas. Each of the many barracks accommodates from fifty to seventy-five medical officers, who in company formation receive instruction in physical drill, in army regulations, in the manual of the Medical Department, in army law, in military hygiene and sanitation, and in many allied subjects. A few of the men were fresh from the medical schools or from a hospital interneship, another small number have joined the camp in lieu of being drafted into the general service, but the majority of the 'men have exchanged comfortable professional incomes for the modest salary of an army officer. When they are all together and the opportunity is afforded of looking into their upturned faces, the firmness, determination, and resolution which are depicted there show the absurdity of the statement attributed to a German official that "America is merely bluffing in the preparation she is making for this war.'

Look, for instance, at that grizzled veteran as the company lines up for the first drill. Note his puzzled expression as the drill-master shouts in an emphatic manner, after the preliminary command of "Fall in," "Stop that talking," "Take your hands out of your pockets,' "Shoulders straight,' ""You're soldiers now-forget you're docs." Then off he is marched to the drillground, where the," school of a soldier" is taught by competent instructors who show no mercy and play no favorites. Age in this instance has not its usual compensations. In an hour he has returned to the barracks and is listening to a lecture on army regulations. The tables are turned. With what pleasure would his former students listen to his efforts in recitation! Then the dread of the coming examination! The memories of the old college days are again awakened, but he may now find difficulty in keeping up with his younger and more quickly thinking colleagues. Yet the effort must be made, if only for the sake of example.

Life in the reservation is fortunately not altogether serious. There is a certain amount of good-natured chaff, of which the latest arrival is the usual recipient. This unfortunate individual is always identified by his military dress cap, and his appearance on the ground in search of headquarters is invariably the signal for all kinds of misleading advice. A freshman he is notwithstanding his years, and the greeting of "Hello, Doc," issues from almost every barrack window in the vicinity. "There it is! That's the door you're looking for!" is advice which, if followed, would lead him into anything but headquarters. The newcomer has been known to visit the quartermaster's department to purchase a "picket line," which has been represented to him as an indispensable daily requirement. In another instance, at the end of a long afternoon's march, two "freshmen were detailed by their associates to retrace their steps for the purpose of securing the "skirmish line," which they were directed to find and return to the barracks. The career of the "freshman " at Fort Riley is, however, much more short-lived than is the case in any other educational institution. The possession of the usual undress hat is a token of his gradu

ation into the next higher class, and after several days he becomes quite sophisticated and is cordially welcomed as an equal by those who have initiated him into the mysteries of the Officers' Training Camp.

After the morning instruction there is a short period before dinner is served when the morning mail is distributed and read, but even this agreeable duty is usually interrupted by the muffled sound of "Come and get it!" from the door or window of the adjoining mess-hall, followed by a rush of hungry men to a shack in which are placed two long, narrow tables, with a row of benches on either side. Table-cloths and napkins are unheardof luxuries even in the "Faculty mess, and the dinner is rapidly" served" by obliging orderlies in the simplest possible

manner.

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"Come and get it " is repeated immediately after the beautiful notes of the "Retreat" and "To the colors are played on the bugles at a quarter past five, the afternoon having previously been devoted to instruction and to either a stiff walk or to equitation. Those over forty, however, are excused from the latter exercise. No wonder that the veteran is ready for " Taps," and willingly retires to his cot, which, together with his trunk and other personal effects, occupies the space of five feet by nine which has been allotted to him in the barracks. There is a particularly soothing quality in the bugle notes which indicate "bedtime," and possibly the tired reserve officer recalls the lines of Coleridge:

"Oh sleep, it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the blessed sleep from Heaven,.
That slid into my soul."

In the morning, too, the repeated calls of "reveille" and to "assembly," which summon him at an unusually early hour to the labors of another day, are musical runs of which the ear never tires.

Colonel Bispham, who is the efficient director of the Fort Riley Medical Officers' Training Camp, and whose judgment of human nature and individual capacity is exceptional, speaks of the camp as a melting-pot in which, at the end of a three months' period of intensive training, the pure, clear, distilled fluid is represented by those who have demonstrated their fitness for service, while the floating scum or settling sediment represents those who have proved inapt. But the camp is a melting-pot in a much larger sense, in that men coming from almost every State of the Union meet on a common level, and, subjected to the harmonizing influence of association, form a democracy which knows no section of the country and which is animated by the single purpose of devotion to the country's needs.

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Some unusually interesting types of men are found in the camp. Captain E- whose parents came to Quebec from England in the early part of the last century, and who is a veteran of the Boer War, has practiced recently in the lofty altitudes of Colorado. He has a clear gray eye that indicates decisiveness and great determination, a man born to rule and to lead men.

Captain O, of powerfully built physique that suggests an all-American fullback on a football team, is a native of Kansas. Had he lived in the days prior to the Civil War he would have fought on the side of those who made Kansas free. He would have opposed with all his might the introduction of slavery into that State, and would have rendered this service

to the Union without the fanaticism of John Brown and without the cruelty practiced by some of that unfortunate man's followers.

Then there is Lieutenant W, of Arkansas, generous, sincere, and of a mild-mannered disposition. He bears the scars of bullets received in a family quarrel at the hands of a cowardly assassin who had hoped to catch him unawares, and who paid the death penalty for his temerity. Lieutenant W is having some difficulty in making up his mind to salute colored officers. Every now and then he hums the refrain that ends with an expression of the determination of the singer to get to Berlin, by heck."

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a

My old friend and former student,1 Major P, is an interesting character. He is a member of the faculty of the camp school of instruction, and at present is presiding over the isolation camp with firmness but with good nature. Major Ployal Yalensian, amusingly refers to his charges who are isolated in order to observe the development of possible germs, as "bugs or "insects."

Captain S must not be forgotten; he has no sense of rhythm and will never be able to keep in step. The other day at drill "Cap" was acting as guide, and after each simple movement was executed found himself somewhat dazed at a considerable distance from his proper position, whereupon he was greeted by the drill-master with a good-natured "What! lost again, Captain S?" He has a gentle temperament, however, like

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all men who have more than their share of avoirdupois, and is deservedly popular with his colleagues.

In searching for a reason to account for the gathering together of so many men of intelligence and strength of character one is immediately impressed with the fact that in most instances their services have been volunteered from a spirit of devotion to their country. I was told by one that the constant reference to slackers, repeated daily on the front page of his local newspaper, "got on his nerves," and led him to leave his wife and three small children to join the colors.

Lieutenant R- -, unwilling to volunteer without his wifes' consent, succeeded at the end of three months in convincing her that his country was entitled to his service, and he is one of the most enthusiastic members of our company. Lieutenant B -, a representative of the "quality" in Tennessee, has two little daughters, and Lieutenant B- of Ohio, three. Recently a cake with five candles arrived, and the birthday of one of these daughters of the company was appropriately celebrated in the barracks. All credit to the wives who have thus made it possible for their husbands to enter the service. One of these, recently married, declared that 'it was very hard to have her husband leave, but that she could not respect him were he to remain at home. Those left behind may speak of the sacrifice made by those who are here; but in using the word sacrifice they do not fully realize that the word is neither in the vocabulary nor in the thoughts of the Reserve Officer.

III-SAYING GOOD-BY AT A HOSTESS HOUSE
SCENES AT AN EMBARKATION CAMP
BY A HOSTESS

HE work of the Hostess House is a godsend to the woman who longs to get closer to the battle-line than she can through the ordinary activities evoked by the war. The help thus offered by the House to the Hostess deserves a chapter by itself. But I can here tell something only of the help given by the House and its Hostess to the departing soldier and his loved ones.

The ordinary Hostess House is a rest cure compared to that of Camp Merritt. That is because most of the Houses are at training camps, while this is the place of good-bys. People who do not feel that they can afford the time or the money to visit other camps come to Merritt. The space is usually crowded, the atmosphere is always tense, and the duties of a volunteer hostess are anything one might almost say everything-except those of a formal routine. They include welcoming new arrivals at the door, steering them to the information desk, finding seats for them when the call has been given and keeping them in the seats if possible (there is a natural inclination on the part of those waiting to stand at the door), talking with those who want to talk, hearing complaints and pacifying the discontented, reassuring those to whom each minute of waiting seems an hour, paging people who are called for, explaining the geography of the house and the hours and limitations of the cafeteria service, administering first aid (from local massage and smelling-salts to safety-pins), and in general dealing according to her light with whatever problems may arise, except that of housing, which is in the hands of one special worker.

There are two duties besides, one funny, one tragic, which deserve separate mention for the heavy draughts they make upon one's sympathy and one's tact, such as it is or may not be. One is the chaperonage of the unmarried. This is often a sinecure. One day I noticed a woman who had been sitting patiently for a full hour, and asked her whether she had secured any response to her call.

"Oh, it's not for me," she beamed, reassuringly; "it's for my daughter. She's in the next room there. You see, the young man she came to see is only eighteen-she's sixteenbut he would enlist. We've known him since he was three, and when his own folks couldn't come here we live out in Indiana

Major Eliot is known to a host of physicians throughout the country because of his long connection with the teaching force of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City.-THE EDITORS.

-they said they hoped we could. She was just crazy to come she says he's just like her big brother"--the two pairs of middle-aged eyes shared a moment of tender amusement that did not need words--" and he says that she's different from all the other girls, somehow. She has such a good influence over him, too-never lets him touch tobacco. Of course they're only children; but, you see, the way we felt about it was this: if we didn't let her come, and anything happened to him, she'd never get over it."

I looked into the next room. There they sat-so sweetly, so absurdly young, the round, wholesome, fresh-colored faces very grave. She was holding his hat and he her little pocketbook with a sort of ritual solemnity.

All couples, however, are not so circumspect, and to preserve necessary decorum, even in a crowded room, is a difficult matter at times.

The other duty is the hardest of all-telling those who come too late that their men have gone. One hostess broke to an anxious woman the news that her husband had embarked.

"He's gone with his regiment?" the wife pressed her. "Are you sure he's gone with his regiment ?"

"I'm sorry. They went out yesterday, and he was with them."

The wife's face shone unexpectedly.

"Thank God!" she whispered. "Oh, thank God he came back and they let him go with them! He deserted when they were at Camp and I've been praying that he would come back, but couldn't be sure till now.'

The personality of a hostess is one of her principal assets. We have splendid women at Merritt, but one among them is the mountain-mover par excellence. She is a daughter of the South, with a warm heart and a ready tongue, and there is one member of the American Expeditionary Force who would probably prefer going "over the top" to incurring her condemnation again. One day a consumptive mother with many young children came to the Hostess House in search of her husband. He could not be found-he had secured a twenty-four-hour pass. Mrs. E. promptly took the family to her home, and when she learned that the mother had been feeding the children on a dollar a week-one can imagine how little of those meager earnings went for her own nourishment!-she immediately began an investigation as to why the husband had not been granted

exemption when his presence was so glaringly needed at home. It transpired that he, evidently weary of domestic responsibilities, had simply ignored his family and had neither asked exemption nor signed allotment papers.

"Mr. E. thought I spoke harshly to him," she remarked later, in telling the story. "I only said that he was a disgrace to the service, and that if I wasn't sure that for him to go to France and get killed, if possible, would be the best thing for his wife, I would have him yanked out of the uniform he was unworthy to wear so quick that he wouldn't know what hit him."

I may add that he signed all necessary papers before his departure-how willingly one can only guess.

This same lady is as strenuous in mercy as in justice. A boy at the camp was anxiously awaiting the arrival of his parents from the West. Their train was hours late. Night came, and they were still far away, the hour of their arrival uncertainand he was to leave at five in the morning. Almost any one would have called the situation hopeless. Not so Mrs. E. She persuaded the local taxi company to send a cab to a railway station twelve or fifteen miles distant; by telephonic threats and entreaties she overbore the protests of the chauffeur through the long waiting, and at three o'clock the father and mother were deposited in triumph at the Hostess House for two hours with their son.

We may well be proud of our young men-that fact is borne in upon us at every turn. But it is at the Hostess House of an embarkation camp that one learns in practice as well as in theory how proud we may be of our women and our older men. The simple, quiet, unpretentious heroism of those mothers and fathers, those brothers, sisters, wives, and sweethearts! For one vein of base yellow there are ninety-and-nine of pure gold.

The first day I was on duty I had filled my tray at the cafeteria, and stood looking about the crowded room, somewhat strange and at a loss. A pretty little dimpled girl beckoned me to an empty place at her table. We laughed a moment over the perplexities of the newcomer. "I've been here two days," she said, "but I'm going this afternoon. You see, I want to leave before my husband does. He's never seen me cry since the war began, and I don't want him to. I'm glad and proud for him to go and do his little bit, and he knows I feel that way; but if he ever saw me cry he couldn't help remembering that sometimes."

Her husband came back just then with their lunch traysuch a fine lad!-and we made very merry over our meal. I felt as if I could never whimper again in all my life.

Another of the same spirit was an elderly woman, frail and sick with a chronic disease, who had taken the journey of twelve hours at a moment's notice to bid her boy, her only child, Godspeed. She was dreading, while she longed, for his arrival at the Hostess House, for, she explained, "I was car-sick all night, and I'm afraid I'll break down and make it hard for him."

One day a wee lad in complete uniform was very impatient for his father's coming. The little voice would pipe up eagerly at each opening of the door, "Is that daddy? Why don't daddy come?" It was one of the special cases that take a peculiar grip on one's heart. It was a very busy day, even for Camp Merrittone of the days when, as a worker expresses it, we never see the color of the floor; the line at the desk was long and urgent, the orderlies were hurried and tired. Things easily go wrong on such a day, so you can imagine the relief of hearing a kindly, capable-looking soldier say: "Yes, I know him. I'll go over now and tell him you are here. Daddy'll be coming pretty soon, sonny." Sure enough, it was only a short time before the tiny officer hurled himself down the board-walk to be caught up and kissed.

As I looked away, happy, I caught the eye of a sweet-faced young woman by the door. We smiled at each other, and I voiced my uppermost thought, "The little boy's father has come!" Then I returned to duty and asked her whether she had yet received any response to her call. “Oh, yes, thank you," she answered. "My husband was here, and he will be back in a moment. He was the one who went after the little boy's father." Those precious moments! and yet, as she said in reply to my exclamation, "Why, of course he was glad to. You see, he knows now anxious I was to see him, and so he wants to help all he can."

The foregoing is only a suggestion of what the Hostess Houses are doing for those whom they mean to serve; let it also be a testimony of what the service does for those who render it. For increased resourcefulness, for new ideals of courage and devotion, for broadened understanding and a living sense of sisterhood that goes down to the very roots of life, we give humble and hearty thanks to our unconscious teachers.

SHALL WE TEACH GERMAN IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS?

BY REAR-ADMIRAL CASPAR F. GOODRICH

UNITED STATES NAVY

one denies the value of a knowledge of foreign tongues,

Nout this value, apart from the intellectual enjoyment it than any, possibly all, of its competitors, and so is of the fest

affords, must be measured by the individual's needs in his particular calling. If the latter be such as to take him abroad on service, business, or pleasure, familiarity with the speech of the country in which he travels or sojourns is, to say the least, an immense convenience. In cases where he represents a mercantile house, or, still more so, where he represents the National interests, this familiarity greatly furthers his aims or facilitates the negotiations with which he is charged. The writer, on account of his official position, has had frequent opportunities of establishing, to his own satisfaction, this rather selfevident proposition, and he has often been thankful for such acquaintance as he possesses with French, Italian, German, and Spanish; an acquaintance which has at times materially aided him in the discharge of his duty. It follows, from this reference to his own experience, that he is naturally disposed to encourage rather than to discourage a movement to foster linguistic acquirements.

If asked which of the languages mentioned he has found most useful, he must candidly yield the palm to French, an accepted medium of diplomatic intercourse and the foreign language most generally spoken in society the world over. For those who seek a career under the State Department or whose means and leisure allow them extended trips or halts in Continental Europe, French rises above the plane of mere convenience.

English is more universally spoken in the commercial world importance. to English connection, and above French, especially for persons who, touch at many seaports, comes Spanish, the tongue of all Central and South America excepting only Brazil. In view of our large and increasing trade relations with these neighbors of our hemisphere, it would seem as if instruction in Spanish should hold the right of way; yet it finds its place, and a minor one at that, in few public school curricula.

While the delight of reading Dante, Tasso, and their charming modern successors in the original and of conversing in their beautiful tongue is more than worth the trouble of learning it, still, materially speaking, Italian must rank as a desideratum much below Spanish.

Of German it may be said that it is quite unnecessary to us as a means of business communication, since the Germans tacitly admit the primacy of English by teaching it extensively and with especial thoroughness to such among their students as contemplate embarking in commercial affairs abroad. How rare it is, by the way, to meet an educated German who does not speak English! The Germans have no false pride in material matters. They would not thus emphasize the importance and necessity of English were it not to their interest to do so. As a language German is terribly involved and cumbersome. It lacks simplic ity, directness, and those clear-cut definitions in which French

THE LATEST MARK FOR BOMBARDMENT BY GERMAN "KULTUR" The beautiful Cathedral at Amiens, pictured above as it appeared before the recent drive began, has now become a mark for German gunners. A newspaper correspondent says: "More than a score of shells have struck within a radius of fifty yards of the Cathedral. One shell smashed a stone base and wrecked the railings, then spattered the whole of that [the east] end of the building, smashing large pieces out of the carved masonry and breaking some of the beautiful old windows, also bringing down two large gargoyles. The whole of this face of the building is a sorry sight." The Cathedral was begun in the thirteenth century and completed towards the end of the fourteenth century. It has been called "perhaps the finest church of Gothic architecture in France