the commissioned students. Candidates demonstrating unfitness were to be eliminated by the commandant; upon successful completion of the school, fit candidates were to be appointed as chaplains in the grade of first lieutenant. A typical day at the school began with setting-up exercises, followed by breakfast; then one hour of drill and three hours of classes; in the afternoon, after lunch, one hour of equitation and three hours of lectures or conferences; and after supper, two hours of study. The curriculum included such subjects as military law, international law, Army regulations, customs of service, hygiene, first aid methods of social welfare work and practical religious work among enlisted men. With only a few modifications, the plan was followed until the school was deactivated in January 1919.97

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The faculty for the first session consisted of Chaplain Pruden, who had been appointed as commandant, and three other chaplains; a medical officer who taught hygiene and first aid; and a coast artillery officer who taught drill, equitation, and calisthenics. During the first session, Pruden rejected six candidates as unfit. Two were physically unfit; one was not an American citizen. Of the remaining three, two failed their examinations, and the other was a "negro of an erratic disposition." The denominational officials representing the candidates were satisfied that the judgment of Pruden and the faculty was correct. During the seven sessions of the school, 273 students failed to graduate; about 100 were in the last class and were allowed to leave when the armistice was signed. Most of the others were eliminated because of academic failure or because the faculty believed that they lacked the "qualities of personality or the adaptability necessary to success." Chaplain Ovid R. Sellers, who attended the first class at Camp Zachary Taylor, said that "once a week several candidates would be called to the office [Pruden's] and then disappear." A total of 1,042 candidates and newly commissioned chaplains graduated from the school; 915 served as chaplains, but 127 finished after the armistice and did not enter active service.99

After the school moved to Camp Zachary Taylor, members of the General War-Time Commission, and later the interfaith Committee of Six, visited it and reported that the "excellent work done and being done" had "already justified its formation." In addition, both groups made several suggestions as to how instruction might be improved. More significantly, both groups believed that "something more of the spiritual note should be included in the course of training." The Committee of Six recommended that additional time be allowed for personal religious exer

cises, prayer, and Bible reading, and that the course of study be concluded with a spiritual retreat. It also called the school an "indispensable agency for securing the proper selection and promoting the fitness of chaplain candidates for service in the Army." Upon receiving the committee's report, both the Adjutant General and the Secretary of War concurred.100

How much follow-up action, if any, was taken at the school in regard to the suggestions made by the Committee of Six is not clear. Within a short time, on 15 November 1918, the Secretary of War directed that no further students be admitted to the school, and the school began to demobilize for deactivation the following January. Whatever shortcomings there may have been in the methods of instruction and the curriculum, the graduates largely agreed that the school fitted them "quickly and efficiently into the requirements" for the situation which they encountered later in France.101

To supplement the training the chaplains received at the school, Bishop Brent established an A.E.F. school on 1 June 1918 at Neuilly-surSuize near Chaumont, with Chaplain John A. Randolph as the commandant. Later, on 1 October 1918, the school was relocated at Chateau d' Aux at Louplande near Le Mans. Its primary mission was to provide realistic instruction for use on the battlefront, but it also served as a replacement depot for newly arrived chaplains, and as a rest and recouperation center for chaplains on pass from the hospitals and the front. Due to the urgent need for chaplains "up front," the course was brief and practical. At first it consisted of one week of lectures by chaplains who had seen battle with their units, but in late August Chaplain Randolph established a 10-day course with a faculty of seven. Chaplain Ovid R. Sellers believed that the course was more pertinent than the one at Camp Zachary Taylor. The subjects which made the greatest impression upon Chaplain Elzer Des Jardins Tetreau were gas defense drill and identification and burial of the dead. He was also impressed by the emphasis upon serving holy communion at the front and by the vesper services conducted by Chaplain Paul D. Moody, the son of evangelist Dwight L. Moody. The size of the classes varied; some numbered between 100 and 150. About 600 chaplains attended the school before it closed on 31 January 1919.102

While they worked to increase the number of chaplains and to establish a school for chaplains, religious leaders also cooperated on other tasks in behalf of the chaplaincy. Protestants worked through the General Committee on Army and Navy Chaplains. Believing that the "direction. of religious and social activities among the Negro soldiers can be, in the

main, managed most successfully by Negroes," black churchmen asked the committee to obtain an adequate number of black chaplains. Devoting itself to that task, the committee succeeded in increasing the number of black chaplains from four to 63. (Appendix 3). In addition, it sought to raise the status of chaplains from that of welfare officers, morale officers, and handymen to that of ministers of the Gospel. The Secretary of the committee wrote that the chaplain's primary task was to preach the Gospel.10 As for chaplain supplies and equipment, the Joint Committee on Chaplains of the General War-Time Commission, the Committee on Chaplains' Aid of the National War Council, and the Chaplains' Committee of the Jewish Welfare Board supplemented those furnished by the Army. They provided Mass kits, communion sets, portable typewriters, prayer books, Bibles, and religious literature. The Joint Committee on Chaplains attempted to persuade the government to give "proper equipment" to chaplains. In early 1919 the Jewish Welfare Board even furnished Ford cars to the Jewish chaplains in Europe so that they could cover their area without difficulty and visit more Jewish soldiers. Chaplain Lee J. Levinger said that his car at least doubled the value of his work, 104

Of all the efforts by American religious leaders in behalf of the chaplancy, none was more intensive or prolonged than the campaign to establish a chaplain corps headed by a chaplain. During the Civil War, the appointment of a chaplain general was rumored but never became a reality.105 When Orville J. Nave began to promote the idea of a chaplain corps and a chief of chaplains in the late 1880s, the War Department rejected it. Moreover, the chaplains themselves could never agree about the matter, and the churches demonstrated little, if any, interest in it. Still, a few chaplains continued either to promote it or object to it. Not until the time of the Great War did the idea gather influential and widespread support.

At the December 1917 Executive Committee meeting of the General War-Time Commission, Dr. William Adams Brown read a proposal submitted to him by Chaplain Aldred A. Pruden. Pruden, apparently hoping that the commission would promote his plan, recommended that a board of three experienced and able chaplains be appointed and assigned to the War Department immediately; that two members oversee chaplain affairs from Washington, D.C., while the other tours the camps "to keep in touch with conditions, see what chaplains

are doing, and meet candidates"; that one member be a Catholic; and that the senior members serve as board chairman.106

The General War-Time Commission shared Pruden's proposal with the interfaith Committee of Seven (later the Committee of Six), and the committee discussed it with Secretary of War Baker, who told the committee that he would appoint whoever it "could agree on" to the position of chaplain general. Subsequently, the committee chairman, Father John J. Burke, consented to the appointment of a Protestant to the position if a Catholic was appointed as his principal assistant. When the conference with the Secretary of War was reported to the appropriate committees of the General War-Time Commission, the Secretary of the General Committee on Army and Navy Chaplains recommended that the position be filled by an able Regular Army chaplain; some consideration was also given to the appointment of a National Guard chaplain for an assistant. Several names were discussed for the position, including those of John T. Axton, Henry A. Brown, Nathaniel A. Jones, Aldred A. Pruden, John A. Randolph, William A. Scott, and H. Percy Silver. Finally, the choice narrowed to Axton or Scott, and it appeared that the matter was almost settled.107

Secretary of War Baker, however, had second thoughts about the necessity of the appointment, and it appeared as remote as ever. Still, Pruden persisted. Appearing at a March 1918 meeting of the General War-Time Commission, he emphasized the importance of a “Chaplain in Chief" to supervise the assignment of chaplains and to provide a direct approach to the War Department "in matters affecting the work of chaplains." Evidently, his appeal was successful, for the commission requested William F. McDowell, the Methodist Episcopal Church, North, bishop in Washington, D.C., to confer with Secretary of War Baker about the matter. Upon conferring with Baker, McDowell was advised that he should take up the subject with Third Assistant Secretary of War Keppel; Keppel handled matters concerning the relationship of the Army to civilians. McDowell quickly secured an appointment with Keppel and apparently achieved the desired result. On 3 June 1918 the Judge Advocate General, at the direction of the Secretary of War, drafted a bill to create a "Corps of Chaplains." The corps was to be made up of chaplains in the grades of first lieutenant to colonel and be organized along the same lines as the Medical Corps, with grades in the same ratio as those of the Medical Corps.

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While the stateside campaign to establish an organization of chaplains was in progress, General Pershing established the position of "Senior General Headquarters Chaplain" in the A.E.F., and appointed Bishop Brent to that position. Desirous of organizing the chaplains and of coordinating the activities of the moral and spiritual agencies at work in the A.E.F., Pershing asked Brent, who had arrived in France during December 1917 as a representative of the Y.M.C.A., to stay and assist him "to the end of the war." When Brent said that he would stay "for as long as he could be of real service," the general then told him that in regard to "moral matters pertaining to the Army," he should "feel free to bring anything to his attention which . . . he ought to know." Based on that understanding, and knowing that Pershing wanted religious and welfare activities administered from the General Headquarters, Brent proceeded by first meeting with the Deputy Chaplain General of the British forces, and then with a committee made up of key representatives of the welfare agencies and A.E.F. chaplain Francis B. Doherty. Thus, he determined how to proceed further.'

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General Pershing favored an A.E.F. corps of chaplains headed by Brent, but the bishop convinced him that a better plan would be to appoint a permanent executive committee or board of chaplains to oversee the work of the chaplains and welfare agencies. Subsequently, Brent, Doherty, and Paul A. Moody, were appointed to make up that committee; Brent served as the chairman. In that position Brent was generally acknowledged as the Chief of Chaplains of the A.E.F., and he was known to use that title himself. Strangely enough, he served for a few months in that capacity as a civilian; he was reluctant to accept a commission. Pershing, however, fiinally convinced him that he would have "no more power than his [Pershing's] orderly without a commission," and Brent accepted a commission as "major and chaplain." The general had attempted to arrange an appointment for Brent in the grade of lieutenant colonel, but Federal legislation precluded that grade. Upon being commissioned, Brent said that his "only tremor [was] from a sense of being less free." 110

Brent wasted no time in setting out to shape the A.E.F. chaplains into a corps whereby each chaplain would "not be counted an appendage" to his regiment or commander, but would be given a "place in the councils" of his unit. To that end, he assumed responsibility for assigning all chaplains within the A.E.F., arranged for senior chaplains to be assigned at high command levels (army, corps, division, separate bri