sort of refusal. He lifted his chest and shoulders and returned to the attack. His voice was high.

"Me work two weeks-no pay-my baby no eat, me no eat three day-"

"I will look the matter up and see if we can't do something. Come and see me again."

The ideas in the wire-drawer's mind were very simple, conclusive ones. They were that his family was starving, that he had come for help and hadn't got it. One hand flew jerkily upward. drew his fingers across his throat. "You want kill me, I guess," he said, and left in a stumbling flight.

He

After the encounter the office sat a little stunned. Then the employment manager ran out in the street after the wire-drawer. He arranged to have his family fed by the Salvation Army.

its way to all parts of the city in innumerable ways. It went forth by scrap trucks going to the other mills, by delivery wagons passing strolling workmen, by women returning home from work, by workmen out early and going home on trolley cars. It went into New Poland, and New Naples, and New Russia, and before morning would certainly be noised abroad in adjoining towns. In a half-hour the street in front of the employment office was jammed with a crowd that began to interfere with traffic. I went out into the crowd.

"Say," said a man whom I used to see in the machine shop, "they tell me the company's taking on two hundred men this afternoon."

The employment manager came to the door and looked at the crowd. "That's all," he said.

A

NY one at all interested in the allaround training of young Americans last summer would surely have approached Mountain Lake with the keenest kind of interest. For here was that amazing laboratory, that camp of experiments, where school-men, physical training experts, and the Army were co-operating for the first time, endeavoring to solve great questions presented by the boy of sixteen and seventeenthose vitally important ages of entrance into manhood.

No doubt there was some general kind of training that would grip the boy of this age group and aid in giving him a clean character, in making him an intelligent citizen, in giving him a good physique, and in developing such matters as self-discipline, resourcefulness, initiative, and a capacity for obedience as well as for leadership. A rather ambitious programme, but how infinitely worth while! The schools alone could not accomplish it; and then so many boys of sixteen and seventeen are no longer in school. The physical-training folk could not accomplish any such programme, despite the close relationship between physical and mental efficiency and the relationship of both to character. The Army could not do it at all, despite the hardy old colonels who would swear that the Army is the best school for the cultivation of all the graces of mind and body! By some marvel of fortune these three agencies were got together, and Camp Young America was the result.

You probably heard very little about it. Not a great deal was permitted to get into the press, but that little was quite enough to arouse one's curiosity. And so it was that the writer was impelled to visit Mountain Lake in time to observe the fifth and last week of the camp.

Hill country, with plenty of woods and water-what an appropriate place

BY CHARLES K. TAYLOR

for boys! The camp site was admirably chosen, occupying, as it did, a broad and dry plateau sufficiently high above the level of the lake. Trees were all through the camp, and a solid mass of them hid the hills right behind it. All this struck one at once at first glance. It was evidently not the usual hot, dusty army camp. It was rather a "woodsy" kind of camp, with plenty of sun, to be sure, but plenty of welcome shade as well. As for the lake, it seemed clear and sparkling, with a good beach and numerous diving piers.

Upon entering the camp bounds my car, of a deservedly famous type, was held up by a very businesslike sentry, neat as a pin, who would not let me by until the corporal of the guard had looked me over.

No, I was not bringing in "smokes" or other contraband. Yes, I was expected by Major Sartorius. Fortunately, the Major's letter was at hand. The seventeen-year-old guardian scrutinized it severely, nodded his head, and I was in. After passing several groups of tents-company groups, I learned they were called-there appeared a rustic bungalow with all the earmarks of a headquarters about it. Here another sentry was politely but firmly curious, but in a moment I was ushered into a

bright, breezy office where interesting ideas were being evolved.

The room had three broad desks. At one sat a very obviously military personage with a major's decoration. At the next was another man in khaki, but with no military insignia. This was doubtless Dr. Nieman, the well-known educator. The third desk was occupied by a fine-looking man of handsome physique, wearing khaki "shorts," khaki woolen "sport" stockings, canvas rubbersoled shoes, and a sleeveless khaki jersey.

When in addition I say that he had thick red hair and wore a black ribbon-guard on his glasses, you will

recognize at once Dr. Henry Stark, our famous authority on physical training and no less famous sculptor.

66

"G

LAD to have you come," said the Major. "We have been very properly reticent up to this time, and I think we would do well to continue reticent, for, after all, one cannot accomplish very startling things in five weeks. But here and there we have run across an idea that seems to work. I believe we three have learned more than the boys." The others nodded emphatically.

"Well," continued Major Sartorius, "one understands more by seeing than by sitting here talking. Let's take our visitor in turns and tell him of our special interests." They agreed at once.

"You do the honors first, Major," said Dr. Nieman, smiling.

"Not at all," said the Major, "the school takes precedence."

"Oh, well," exclaimed Dr. Stark, laughing, "toss a coin, as usual, and have it over with." Whereupon they all laughed. A coin was produced, and the Major won the doubtful privilege, after all.

"Usual army luck," grinned the sculptor. "Well, go ahead, and don't tell him everything. Leave something for us."

starte E started for the nearest company "Quite true," said the Major in answer to my question. "Not one of us is the head. It is thoroughly a co-operation. I confess, I had my doubts at first. We West Point products are sometimes a little too sure about things concerning which we have had little or no experience. I learned in a hurry that handling boys is very different from handling men. In the beginning Dr. Nieman gave me a lecture on boy psychology, and I didn't believe half of what he said. Then he went and proved it. And I found, to my surprise, that there is more difference in

characteristics and outlook between a boy of sixteen and one of eighteen than between eighteen and twenty-eight. I had planned, of course, to make this very much like the usual army training camp. But I planned without Messrs. Nieman and Stark, and, as the regulations for us provide that a majority rules, they outvoted me two to one on several cherished matters."

We strolled through the nearest company village. It was deserted. Also it was quite immaculate. The ground around the tents was in perfect order. We examined a few tents. Each cot was in order, and each boy's belongings. But those cots were certainly not regulation cots! I remarked as much, and the Major grinned.

"Those cots," said he, "represent the policy evolved by Dr. Nieman, abetted by some of the engineering folk. Their principle is this: We wish to develop resourcefulness and initiative. The usual military machine applied to boys at the formative age tends to destroy both. So this general rule was madenothing would be done for a boy that he could do for himself, nothing provided for him that he could readily make. The manual-training experts said that with canvas and boards any sixteen-year-old boy could make a satisfactory cot in about forty-five minutes. So when they came our boys were given seven feet of canvas and shown the lumber-pile. Also they were given sketches and a photograph-one set per squad, each squad forming a tent group."

That accounted for the cots! Yet they were of sturdy design and obviously as comfortable as any army cot.

"They had to put up their own tents first," continued the Major. "Oh, no; they didn't find a nice camp waiting for them, all set up. When the boys were assigned to their companies and their companies to their areas, they found a pile of rolled-up tents and a pile of tentpoles. There were some almost painfully humorous incidents when the boys were getting the hang of those tents. And when they were more or less up there was an inspection by yours truly, in the usual deadly, cold, blood-curdling army fashion-you know."

"Yes, I know," was my sad reply. Even now I could cheerfully witness the hanging of one or two super-critical officers who made life a burden not so very long ago.

"So some tents came down, but in a couple of hours the company villages were ready for their citizens, and then they got to cot-making. The job began right after breakfast. By noon all was complete-tents up, cots made, with blankets correctly folded in their proper places."

It seemed to me that boys would take a keen interest in a camp they had helped make themselves.

"My forte," continued the Major, "is of course the military end of the programme. Well, we don't have much drill. Boys learn such things with

amazing rapidity, and machine-like precision in drill is not especially valuable with lads of this age, though I once thought differently. Our drill does not take more than thirty minutes per day, though there was a little more in the beginning. You see, all we planned to do was to make possible a fairly presentable evening parade, and that we have done."

"Where did you get your non-coms?" I asked.

"We chose them from the boys as soon as any showed capacity," said he. "Our captains and lieutenants are mostly teachers, physical directors, and Scoutmasters who have seen service, and who also know a lot about boys. I'd like to get all the male teachers of boys into camps of this kind. Good both for the men and the boys. In this kind of camp the majority of officers should be school-men, men knowing boys, who have had army training. Boys differ from men, and so should be under men who know boys. This is something that many army folk did not realize until recently, and something the folks responsible for the 'Citizens' Camps' probably do not know even now, or they would never open a man's camp to lads of seventeen and sixteen. I need not criticise. I had to be taught myself." He laughed a little ruefully.

"Besides the drill, the only other purely military feature is the rifle work," continued the Major, "excepting, of course, our field engineering, which is our best and most interesting experiment. But we are keen for the rifle work. We use the Springfield mostly, though light-weight boys are likely to use a special light-weight gun-bolt action, of course. Boys pick up such things with singular rapidity. These five weeks have given us a large number of really excellent marksmen."

E now returned to the headquar

ters, and I commented on its attractiveness. "Yes," said he, "and it was designed and built by a platoon of juvenile engineers in about five days." When I showed astonishment, he laughed. "Wait till you have seen more of their work," said he.

I was now turned over to Dr. Nieman, who arose promptly and led me to a great field some hundreds of yards away, a field that bordered the lake. As we approached it there came the steady rattling of many hammers.

"The Major gave me an outline of your principles," said I, "but the military part of the programme seemed a little scant."

"Well, why shouldn't it be?" exclaimed he. "The most militaristic nations of Europe knew better than to make automata of adolescent boys. But a little of it is all right-fine! It helps. Our evening parade, with its flag ceremony, comes to mean a lot to a boy. And the amount of drill necessary for that performance is just enough-and no more. You will see. And now for our finest work. Behold!"

As we spoke we passed through a curtain of trees to the edge of an immense meadow, over which hundreds of youths in khaki were scattered. At first it was just a jumble of moving figures and lumber. Then it resolved itself into many little groups, each one actively engaged with some kind of structure. In one part of the field stood several tripod observation towers, and two or three more went up as by magic as I watched. The Doctor nodded at my exclamation.

"Yes," said he, "I believe there is a match between regiments A and C in tower construction and erecting," said he. "The best company of A against the best company of C. Each squad makes a tower from rough materials-green timber and refuse from the dump. The record time for a thirty-foot tower, with platform, railing, and ladder, is, I believe, thirty minutes. There goes another tower!" He squinted his eyes. "A is on the left. They have, so far, five towers to three of C's. Smart work!" So it was.

Near at hand were two larger towers, made after the same fashion, and between them youths were swinging an aerial and simultaneously setting up wireless equipment on an improvised platform near one of them.

"Each regiment has its wireless fiends," said the Doctor. "They race each other getting up towers and aerials. Also they improvise all kinds of makeshifts when we have a war game," he continued, "and of course are in touch with Washington every now and then."

We began wandering about the field. Here several groups were putting up frames for different kinds of buildings. A thirty-foot-wide ravine was crossed by a veritable multitude of foot-bridges of all possible types.

"Those bridges are very familiar," said I, "and some of them, the bowstring span, for instance, not easy to make of green timber. It must take a lot of teaching and a big staff of instructors to accomplish such work in so short a time!"

"Not at all," said the Doctor, emphatically. "This work justifies what many educational psychologists have been claiming, and that is, that this particular age is the very best for developing a constructive capacity. Boys at this time have a real impulse toward building things and putting things together. Why not utilize it? I have found by tests that it is infinitely easier to teach engineering of this kind to boys of this age than to men of twentyone."

"And as to teaching," he continued, "they need precious little-if you make a point of not giving it to them. That is part of our game. It quite horrified my good friend the Major at first when he found we were not going to stand over these youngsters and merely order them to do this and that, and so do all this work mechanically. No, sir. We sometimes showed them models, sometimes photographs or sketches, some

times all three, and then told them to go to it. They had to make all kinds of things out of any material they could get-boards from the dump, green trees from the woods, and so on. We gave them the tools, and not too many of them. Do you see the result? Is not this performance certain to aid very directly in developing resourcefulness and initiative? Just as putting up their tents and manufacturing their cots began it."

"And yet you seem to accomplish this development of individual resourcefulness without losing control or discipline," I commented, for the hundreds of boys were obviously keeping steadily at their work, with no unnecessary noise or skylarking.

piers," said the Doctor," and of course we provided no piers of any kind. So they just built their own piers. Do you see what we are working at?"

It was only too obvious, and I had nothing but rather amazed compliments for the Doctor.

About this time a clear-voiced bugle blew. Others promptly took it up, and before I knew it the scattered squads merged into companies and the companies marched away, we following. Before long came the bugles again, and suddenly my whole digestive apparatus longed for the beans and the bacon sandwiches of ancient memory! It was that kind of bugle-call, you know.

"Certainly we keep good discipline," A

declared the Doctor. "As a part of our teaching of citizenship, at the very beginning we showed unmistakably the necessary connection between co-operation, law and order, and personal liberty, and by the last, of course, we mean the liberty to do things that are worth while, for our benefit or pleasure, that do not interfere with the benefit and pleasure of others. They soon realized that such laws and regulations as we have are but rules of the game, making effective co-operation possible. After all, it is all very simple-that is, to all but the sentimental radicals, who are not interested in reasons, but only in feelings, and usually, to tell the truth, in feelings aroused because they cannot follow the dictates of all their emotions."

NEAR-BY company village showed the boys filing into the mess tent. "Guess I'll give you another experience," said the Doctor. That company commander was most hospitable. Certainly he would dig me up a mess kit and sit me with his boys-provided I preferred the boys' to the officers' mess, which were exactly alike, only the latter was a little more civilized. So I was given a complete outfit and put in charge of a strapping corporal-aged seventeen, and come a thousand miles, so he told me, to this camp.

Just like old times! There was the same old line for grub, but the grub was mighty fine grub, excellent in quality and bounteous, and everything clean beyond criticism. I made some such remark to my friend the corporal. "Huh!" said he, "you can bet those K.P.'s keep things clean! The fellows get that job in turns, and the outfit gets a gosh-awful inspection every now and then, and they keep a score, and companies that get inspection points have to provide K.P.'s to work in the kitchens of some other "Naturally, the boys wanted diving company! Isn't that the dog-gonest

Passing through the field, we reached the shore, and there beheld a number of piers of various kinds extending into the water, most of them being adaptations of the foot-bridges seen in the ravine.

idea? Do you see that skinny K.P. over there? Sure, the one with the carrot hair. Well, he comes from D Company. They got 6 points in two days. We didn't get any. Can't get anything on us, though they come around with microscopes-almost!" The corporal's pride in his company's record is indescribable.

The table talk was healthily noisy, full of fun, of boyish "kidding," and of all that kind of joyous badinage that helps a boy get rid of his unsocial peculiarities and to gain a good temper as well as a power to take a joke with a laugh. I might add, too, that it was no little satisfaction to note that the conversation was invariably clean and that there was no profanity. I frankly asked the corporal how they managed that.

"Ho," declared he, wagging his head, "any buddy that talks smut here sure gets educated! A lot got educated the first week. The Major did it. He began it. No namby-pamby talks, but he-man stuff. We aren't much on swearing either. You see, the officers don't, and we fellows like to copy our officers. Our captain don't like it-swearin'. That's different from just cussin', you know. He don't like swearin', and what he don't like-well, we don't like either. You see, he's no end of a corking fellow."

Well, to tell the truth-and I didn't tell it out loud either-this wasn't like any army camp or mess of my experi

ence.

Mess over, each boy washed his kit and washed it well, and then placed it on a long rack under his number.

"They dry in the air, you see," explained the corporal, "and of course it gives those birds something more to inspect." He gave his own kit a terrifying squint, examining every corner, then hung it in place and offered to take

mine to his captain. "So long," said he, hospitably. "Come again."

"What did you learn at mess?" asked the Major a little while afterwards, when I joined the three leaders in their bungalow.

"Learned a lot, Major," said I, “and, in particular, that it is possible to have a big camp of young fellows and to have it thoroughly decent and clean in its talk. It's fine. But don't you feel it is a little unnatural, Major?"

"Unusual, I'm sorry to say," he replied; "but not unnatural. Boys are naturally decent, but, just as one would expect, they tend to imitate the men with whom they come in contact. Objectionable men are almost always the noisy ones, therefore the most conspicuous, and therefore the ones most likely to be imitated by boys. That is more boy psychology. The Doctor here explained it all long before the camp opened. I find he is right. Our men are decent and clean. Therefore the boys are, or become so. It works. It is a success. I think we are developing something worth while."

"You may be certain of it," I exclaimed, with enthusiasm.

"Well, we're not through with you yet," said the Major, gratified. "Dr. Stark may have something to show you. He gets most of his innings early in the morning and later on in the afternoon. Your turn, Doctor."

OME in here first, and I'll show you something," said the Doctor, going into an adjoining office. Here were many small drawers of index cards. He pulled a drawer and took out a card at random. "Here," said he, "is the physical record of Private Elbert Jones, of Duluth, Minnesota. No faults noted by the medicos. And here are his physical measurements."

"Aren't physical measurements almost worthless?" I asked, disappointed. "I fear I have a real prejudice against them as far as their doing any possible good to the individual boy is concerned. When you have them, what do they mean? How can you tell whether a boy's measurements are what they should be or not? Well, I suppose you do the usual thing, and compare them with the average measurements, and say that a boy who is so old and so tall should weigh about so much and have certain measurements to correspond with his age and height. Most schools do that very thing. And yet, my dear Doctor, why should a boy have a certain approximate weight when he has a certain age and height? Perhaps he resembles a very slender father, and so is ten per cent or more below the average in weight. Does that mean he has malnutrition or something else malign? Not at all. It is as normal for some to be slender and others to be stocky as for still others to approach the general average. There is no earthly reason why only the 'average' type of build should be considered the healthy one."

The Doctor looked at me gravely and said nothing, so I continued my tirade.

"I suppose, before they go home, that you measure them all again. You find that some measurements have increased, and you doubtless note them all down as gains. How do you know they are real gains, and not merely increases due to normal growth? Yet that is what many schools do, note growth increases and term them 'gains.'"

Dr. Stark laughed very heartily. "Thank you," said he. "I never before heard so concise a summary of the objections to the usual kind of measuring. Well, first of all, we do not believe the average type to be the only proper one. Not at all. We say that if a boy is in good health, and not of the abominable purely fat' type, then his weight is correct, no matter what it is. We do believe it is normal for some to be very slender and others to be very stocky, with all gradations between. But we do demand that a boy be well-developed for his type of build!”

"Rational enough; but how do you work it?" I asked.

"Simply enough," said he. "Look, here are this boy's measurements. You see his height is 68 inches and his weight 135. Here are his various girths, and so on. Underneath them are proper measurements for boys of his height and weight. So, you see, he is judged according to his natural type of build. And as he goes above or below the standard points are added to, or subtracted from, 100. This boy has 85, having lost 10 on chest expansion and 5 on shoulder girth. That means something very definite to that boy. He will do his individual exercises in order to get rid of his minus quantities, achieve his hundred, or better. Some go much better."

"Well, that is first class," said I. "But how can you report gains, as different from normal growth increases?"

"Simply enough. A little time goes by. The boy is a little taller and a little heavier. All right. Up go the requirements to make as good a score as he made first. He must increase normally all over to retain his first score. If he gets a higher score, then he has really improved. The highest physical honor this camp gives is for percentage of physical improvement, though we give a fine one for physical perfection too. Now all this, you see, is individual work. Mass calisthenics are useful, but not enough for boys still in the flexible age, when a little individual work can mean so much."

I was surprised to find any individual work at all in the camp, and said so.

"It is an essential part of the game," said he, "and is given an extra appeal by being put on a competitive basis. They compete for improvement and fine physique by individuals and by companies. That is one part of our work. Another is mass calisthenics. There is just a touch of this, but it has a psychological value outside of the merely physical. It is disciplinary in a fine

way too. Besides this, we have as many outdoor games and sports as facilities and schedule permit. We cannot do a lot in five weeks, but we do what is possible. As our mornings are given to specific training, such as engineering, map-making, signaling, first aid, sanitation, and the like, so much of the afternoon is given to physical training, largely under the guise of games and sports. At 4:30 comes the grand swim, and those who cannot swim are taught at all speed. From the swim almost to mess the boys have the time largely at their own disposal, and they are very likely then to take up specialties, such as wireless and the like. Then comes a few minutes of drill, just before mess, ending with a parade. After mess liberty for individual interests; then we have frequent 'movies' of a carefully selected type and talks concerning things worth while knowing. Taps at nine."

"I suppose you use those talks for teaching sex hygiene sometimes."

Dr. Stark's face promptly clouded. "I am not strong for this indiscriminate lecturing on sex hygiene. It is a delusion to think that a knowledge of socalled 'facts' will aid in giving a boy moral character. In fact, it is largely arrant nonsense, promulgated by faddists who know nothing of boy psychology. A thief knows all the 'facts' against stealing and the drunkard knows all the 'facts' against drinking, and the one will steal and the other thieve until their ideals change. Give a boy proper ideals, and you won't have to worry about sex hygiene. Ideals. They are what count most, and a lot of us sit up nights endeavoring to devise methods that will give our boys so high an idealism that clean living and thinking just follow naturally. With older men, yes, you can lecture them in groups. With boys, no. It is more of an individual affair, and sometimes obviously has to be done. But with the mass of boys-ideals. That's the secret -ideals."

I

SPENT the afternoon, then, with Dr. Stark, who showed me all the many fine games and sports going on throughout the camp, and I saw the lake churned to foam when company by company the youngsters hurled themselves into the clear waters. And then I was shown a variety of things mentioned by the Doctor, and finally I ended on the parade-ground, saw a very snappy drill and a most beautiful evening parade, aided by an excellent band. There are few ceremonies so beautiful or appealing, from the marching and countermarching of the band to the coming down of the flag and the final marching by of the companies. And my time was at an end. With mess calls ringing cheerily in my ears the ancient flivver hurried me away for the ten miles to the diminutive station, where, in good time, came a train to take me regretfully away to stuffy cities and indifferent humanity.