that, even with present world conditions in view, these applications are not so great as music's higher use-higher because nearer to the one universal spirit out of which all these other things come. I mean the intrinsic power of music, unattached and unapplied, as it is here to-night-the direct power of music to put life into the heart and vision into the soul of man.

Mr. Farwell's words had power and authority, not because they were spoken by him, but because they were reinforced by the evidence there presented to the eyes and ears of the audience. On another page we tell something of what the Music School Settlement is; but there at its annual concert it was plain to see what the Music School Settlement does. It does not turn out professional musicians; though by good fortune it has contributed to the world a gifted young professional violinist, Max Rosen. It does not primarily exist to enable boys and girls to learn how to support themselves by music or to give the pleasure of music to others in return for money. What it exists for is to implant into boys and girls of the rising generation and into the people of this country, so far as its influence extends, such knowledge of music, such understanding of it, that they will find through music an access to one of the real ends of life. As has been said, the philosopher tries to work out in his mind a theory of order that will explain the disorder and the trouble of the world; the religious teacher inculcates a faith in such order and harmony; while the artist creates a world of order for himself and for others. Music, therefore, is not an ornament to life, but has as serious and valid a part to play in life itself as religion or philosophy. It realizes, in a measure, that which philosophy thinks about and religion expresses in the terms of faith. So the boys and the girls of the Music School Settlement are getting something more than mere happiness. They are getting something worth living for in and of itself.

In a time of war we want to get rid of the non-essentials, the things that help to make life easier, perhaps, and pleasanter, but are not necessary. There are forms of music that are merely ornamental that can be called non-essential. But music itself is essential. If we are to treat it as a non-essential, we might treat as a non-essential life itself.

This is not mere theory. It is highly practical, and it has application to the conduct and prosecution of the war. A while ago a group of men appointed by the Commission on Training Camp Activities of the War Department made a visit to various camps. One of the members of that group was Professor Walter R. Spalding, head of the Music Department of Harvard University. He has written for the "Harvard Alumni Bulletin some of his conclusions as a result of his trip. The object of the journey was to put these men, who all had special knowledge of music, at the disposal of the military authorities in order to make music a means of greater efficiency among the soldiers. As Professor Spalding says, the spiritual plays a large part in the life of a soldier-the fundamental part.

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"A clear illustration of this fact," he points out, "is shown by the phrase 'esprit de corps.' What is the best means available for generating this fire of the spirit? Music: for between the qualifications of a good soldier, i. e., the demand for precision, co-operative action, alertness, initiative, and the inherent characteristics of music, i. e., rhythm, life, unified action, fire, and imagination, there is an everlasting relationship.

6

"Consider the implication of the purely technical terms tempo,'' rhythm,' harmony,' accent.' Our Government is gradually coming to see that music should be made just as much a part of the equipment of our fighting men as weapons, uniforms, and rations.

"We profoundly believe that a victorious army will be a music-loving army, and in making this assertion we are standing on the bed-rock of human instinct and are supported by the century-long experience of all the great military powers of Europe."

Music, therefore, as Mr. Spalding proves, is one of the essentials not only of the civilian population, but of the army. The

materialism that would cut out of life such a force in war time would not only deprive the people of one of those things that are worth living for, but would injure the military efficiency of the Nation itself. There are many great things that are coming out of this war, and perhaps not the least of these will be a new understanding in America of the place of music in life.

DAWN

The Happy Eremite had managed somehow to get out of bed at four-thirty. There was no great virtue in this. He liked the silence of the early hours; he liked the consciousness that the millions of individual centers of conflict in the world roundabout were asleep. It seemed to him that it was easier to think when the atmosphere was not surcharged with the flying thoughts and passions of countless other human beings. He enjoyed with an epicure's relish the cup of indifferent coffee which he made himself on the alcohol stove, he enjoyed tiptoeing downstairs with the cup in his hand, knowing that he was bathed and shaved and dressed, and that the hour was still some minutes short of half-past five. Except for the initial effort of flinging back the covers, getting up at four-thirty was to the Happy Eremite rank dissipation in which he indulged himself only at intervals, owing to a rebellion in his family, who protested against suffering the effects in long, logy yawns from supper time until about nine, when he got his second wind and they were ready for bed.

The Lady Eremite took pains to point out that the working hours he stole from slumber in the morning he lost in semislumber in the evening; which was arithmetically true, but left out of consideration the peculiar lure and magic of the most ordinary and familiar surroundings under circumstances varying only a little from the every-day. The dim light in the eastern windows, the cool fresh air as he opened the door, the deep silence, broken at last by a cock-crow, the sky of robin's-egg blue, with the stars slipping out of sight one by one like shy faces, and that one blazing lamp above the line of radiant orange lying along that wooded ridge

He walked slowly up the winding path to his study. On one side were the familiar woods sloping down to the glen, on the other, the fields, the lot where the potatoes had been, now cut into gulleys here and there by the spring rains. The ponds still half frozen, the great hickory with the platform where the chil dren played in summer, the dark slope beyond, with Cy Henderson's ramshackle house and tumbledown barns, a shapeless mass in the faint light-everything had been familiar and commonplace yesterday, and in an hour or less it would all be famil iar and commonplace again. But for the moment it was magical. He stood still, breathing deeply. Ile had always retained a childish eagerness, some day, somewhere, to make his way into untrodden valleys and over remote and unexplored mountain passes; to find and salvage and search through some treasure galleon off the coast of Cuba, or suddenly to come upon some half-buried city rising in terraces on the side of some forgotten Peruvian peak. The dawn light on the familiar fields and trees and buildings now gave him a touch of that thrill which he thought only the sight of those Eldorados of his imagination would be able to evoke.

The deep orange of the east. flowered slowly into dusky rose, and over it, higher and higher, like a white bee, the morning star quivered. A bird twittered in the great hickory, then another. From a distance came faintly the gurgle of running water. The world was a glory of lavender and mauve and purple and smoky gray, in silent reverence receiving the benediction of the sun. A low March wind rose and blew cold about the Happy Eremite, but he did not stir. He watched the dawn open petals wide, and, turning, he watched his trees, as it were, shake off the night and stand revealed once more in their naked grace. No hidden valley, no sunken galleon, no buried city, could ever hold so deep a magic.

its

"We are encompassed by beauty," murmured the Happy Eremite. "It is the medicine of God for aching hearts and overstrained spirits. It is the multitude of fiery chariots."

He turned to enter the little house that was his study. The copper disc was rising over the dark ridge.

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It must have been in the original scheme of things," he mused, "that man should get up at dawn; and things are muddled in the world, and there is starvation and defeat, because man sleeps late, and so misses the Lord of Hosts when he goes about distributing rations and arms."

He entered the study. The glow of the sunrise was bright on the walls and the peaked ceiling.

"Early in the morning," he whispered. "Lord, open our eyes.

P

RESIDENT SCHURMAN, of Cornell University, said in a recent address: "I believe it is no exaggeration to say that we are confronted with the danger of starvation in the next twelve months."

The basic fact of the world's food situation is that in the face of an increasing demand there is likely to be an actual decrease of production of the chief staples-grains and meat animals. The most optimistic expert looks for no more than normal crops in the world total, at best. And there is no available reserve. Instead there is an indisputable present shortage.

There is a fundamental reason for the coming shortage lack of farm labor. Other difficulties could be met, but no adequate solution has yet been offered for the labor problem. California and the whole Pacific coast to British Columbia report decreased acreage, due to lack of labor. From all the great grain belt, especially Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, come complaints of labor shortage. Some localities are better off than others, but the evidence is overwhelming that from the Mexican border to the far north of Canada there is not enough farm labor to meet present demands, to say nothing of increased

acreage.

"It is hard," said the Vancouver "Sun," editorially, "for the people of this country to grasp the fact that there is actual danger of a world shortage of food. . . . Nevertheless that is exactly what is liable to happen unless the greatest care is taken to ward it off."

Canada is in better position than the United States to meet the crisis because of the greater availability of its enormous unused acreage, its somewhat better labor situation, its efficient coalition Government, and, above all, because of the spirit of effective co-operation that dominates, in spite of minor discords. The Dominion and the various provincial governments, the bankers and the powerful farmers' associations, such as the Grain-Growers of the Northwest, are striving to attack this huge problem in a practical way.

The most striking thing in their attitude is the widespread feeling that it is necessary to "get together," to sink all partisan divergence of opinion, leaving minor matters for later settlement. This is reflected throughout the Canadian press and in the public utterances of leading men of all shades of opinion. There is hardly a discordant note, even from Quebec, as to the chief point. All the provincial governments, as well as that of the Dominion, are not only planning but doing things to forward the movement for greater crops in spite of all difficulties. Railway control and management are being centralized and harmonized to at least as great an extent as in this country. There is, in fact, nothing that the United States has done that Canada has not also done, and they have added and are adding many measures not yet considered here. The banking centers are extending all possible facilities to farmers for the increase of herds and flocks as well as for the planting of greater acreage.

It is planned to make each province as nearly self-supporting as possible. Quebec, for instance, normally consumes about 12,000,000 bushels of wheat, but grows only about 4,000,000. The Government has set aside for distribution in Quebec 400,000 bushels of wheat for additional seeding, in the hope of enabling that province to take care of itself. And Quebec probably has nearly enough farm labor. Similar movements are on foot in the Maritime Provinces to encourage them to grow as much as possible of other foods that can be used in place of wheat and bacon. The same is true of British Columbia.

Governmental control is being applied to providing an abundance of fish, especially for Ontario, at nearly cost price, and is already partially effective. Canada has a license system, and is using all the voluntary restrictions of diet in effect here. To cite one instance of constructive effort, the Dominion Government has encouraged the formation of small farmers' co-operative associations, especially in Ontario, to handle mill feeds in car-load lots in order to raise more hogs. The farmers have responded and very many such associations have been formed. The

Dominion Government has bought one thousand tractors from the Ford Company and is selling them to farmers at cost; and the banks stand ready to give the farmer financial aid where it is needed.

The attitude of the Food. Control is summed up in a recent pronouncement of the Hon. W. J. Hanna that "the time may not be far distant when the choice of the consumer will be between what's left and going without."

But the great constructive development is in the western provinces-Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. That is the field of operations which promises to be of world-wide importance. The potential growth of this section is so vast that figures become meaningless. It is literally true that it could easily grow grain enough to feed the whole world if it were developed and manned.

Both Saskatchewan and Alberta are really farm empires. They are already equipped with a remarkable network of railways, in addition to thousands of miles of waterways. The Saskatchewan River is navigated for about eight hundred miles. The climate is not severe, and the soil is of known fertility. Without going into remote corners there are more than 20,000,000 acres of the finest wheat land ready for immediate development.

The people of these provinces are awakening to the immensity of the world's demand upon them, and are increasingly alive also to the great opportunity offered. It is here, too, that the most successful experiments in co-operation on a large scale have been carried out, and are now growing daily with amazing rapidity. The United Farmers of Alberta and the Farm Women of Alberta claim a membership of about 16,500, most of it acquired within the past two years. The United Grain Growers', Limited, and similar organizations, which began a few years ago as small local co-operative farmers' associations, now practically control the whole wheat crop of the northwest. They own or control more than three thousand grain elevators, large and small. Exact figures are not at hand, but their total handling of grain last year must have amounted to fully $300,000,000, possibly much more.

Western Canada now has 43 members in the House of Commons, as against 27 in the last Parliament, but even more significant is the fact that the organized farmers are represented. Their programme, in general, calls for governmental constructive activity upon a scale hitherto unknown. It is the more remarkable in that it is not visionary, but obviously possible radicalism tempered by sanity and wide practical experience. They are fortunate in having a new country to deal with and a population practically homogeneous, as the few intruded elements, like the Doukhobors, Mennonites, and Mormons, do not bulk large enough to have more than local effect.

A striking illustration is found in the proposal as to the immediate food problem made by the IIon. George Langley, of Saskatchewan, for an increased production of wheat. It is being discussed as practical, although it contemplates breaking a million acres of new land for wheat next summer, calls for the conscription of an agricultural army of twenty thousand men, Government purchase of more than three thousand tractors with the needed subsidiary equipment, and the immediate expenditure of at least $15,000,000.

Mr. Langley proposes to" conscript " his million acres of new land either from areas belonging to the Government or the Canadian Pacific Railroad, or from private owners—wherever it is handy; to buy seed, equip the tracts with gasoline or steam tractors, plows, etc., and man them with twenty thousand experienced men, of whom about one-fifth must be skilled in the use of farm machinery and able to run gasoline engines. These most. important men he plans to take from the employees of the grain elevators, from implement makers' agents, and from chauffeurs. of pleasure cars and others above military draft age who can drive a gasoline engine. He claims that there are over three... thousand elevators, from each of which one man could be drawn without interfering with their later work. It is probable that:

these provinces could get the needed labor by this method. The money must be furnished by the Government.

He also sees the need of a centralized, half-military control, with a single executive head, and even went so far as to suggest either the Hon. J. A. Calder or the Hon. C. A. Dunning as a suitable man to command this army. Incidental minor suggestions are the removal of duty on American-made machinery and elimination of middlemen's profit. Finally, he proposes that when the war is over this land be made available for soldier *ettlement. Legislation to put this plan or some modification of it into effect is being prepared..

The Regina "Post" in further comment said: "No one aeed feel alarmed by the fact that Mr. Langley's plan calls for doing a big thing in a big way. This is a big country, and it is beginning to realize its bigness. . . . Organized effort to augment the work of individual farmers in the most effective way is essential."

That is the keynote-organized effort. And these people have proved that they can co-operate effectively.

In Alberta discussion reaches even further, comprehending uot only agriculture on a colossal scale, but also development of mines, fishery, power, lumber, and even eventually manufacture. The "Morning Albertan," of Calgary, in a thoughtful consideration of the future, particularly after the war and

A

JACKY came up to an officer of the Naval Reserve one day, touched his cap, and asked if he might have leave home to see his sick baby.

to go

"You're married ?” asked the officer.

"Yes, sir; wife and two children."

"How do you come to be in the Navy with such responsibilities as those?"

"Well, I'll tell you, sir. My father fought in the war of the Rebellion. I have two younger brothers who are not married and have no responsibilities at all, but they have developed a yellow streak and will not enlist, so I had to come in to save the honor of the family, and my wife approves what I have done."

That is the spirit of the Naval Reserve.

Some two years ago a body known as the Naval Training Association was organized by certain far-sighted Naval Militiamen, retired naval officers, and others to supplement the work of the Naval Militia and provide men more or less trained for the use of the Navy when the country should get into the war which was inevitable. This organization was taken over and enlarged by the Government last winter, renamed the Naval Reserve, and now consists of several categories of men. The first of these comprises former officers and men of the Navy who enlist for service with the fleet. In the second the men enlist to serve in any capacity on naval vessels which are not of the fleet, such as submarine-chasers, transports, converted yachts, etc. The third enlist for service on auxiliaries, such as colliers, etc. The fourth consists of a coast patrol, and the men serve on submarine-chasers, scout patrol-boats, and such like, but are not to go outside of territorial waters, nor can they be nade to serve outside the section in which they enlist except with their own consent. It was the hope of serving against submarines, which were thought probable visitors to our shores After the experience at Newport the previous summer with the German U-boat, that brought such numbers of college men and boys from high and private schools. These four form the main sections of the Reserve, and there are two more which are in a sense auxiliary—the hydro-airplane service and that at the

Naval Prison at Portsmouth.

When it became clear in the winter of 1916 that war was certain, there was a great rush to enlist in the N. R. There was no limit to the ages at which men wanted to serve. At the original volunteer school at Columbia there was one graduate over seventy

and undergraduates under sixteen. The oldest were often the most eager to serve, the age limit is from nineteen to fifty. eight, and it is whispered that more men over the latter have prevaricated about their ages in order to get in than have boys under nineteen. Yet here, as in France and in England, the very young have wanted to be in it too. Witness the case of the boy of sixteen who forged his father's consent to his enlisting. By the time the irate parent discovered where his son had gone the boy was on a mine-sweeper in the North Sea, so the father gave a bona-fide consent this time.

Many former Naval Militia officers volunteered their services, and in the unit at Columbia University, which numbered only three hundred and fifty men and was employed in training would-be officers and warrant officers, there were four men who had served as officers on the same ship in the Spanish War, the Yankee-a lieutenant, the chief engineer, the boatswain's mate, and the master-at-arms, the last no less a person than a professor of engineering at Columbia.

With all this rush of men to enlist there was nothing ready for them-no barracks, no boats, no airplanes, or almost none. One group of twenty-eight men encamped on the end of a dock at Bridgeport in a deserted coal-shed, and the sentry stood guard with a broomstick. At New Haven the men raised some eight thousand dollars to equip themselves, and were better off than most of their compeers in that they secured the Yale boathouse as a barracks and drill hall, but the Government could do nothing for them. The same story was true all along the line. At New port the men were scattered all over the town, in such lodgings as they were able to pay for. At other stations they were in all sorts of places-armories, Y. M. C. A. buildings, tents, sheds. anything. At Bayshore the aviation section, over one hundred strong, had only one plane to learn with for the first month and over, which gave each man a chance to go up once in ten days or so; therefore to keep them busy they were put to building roads, and very good roads they made. At New London they were set to making nets with which to close our harbors at night-most useful work, but hardly that for which they had enlisted. Everywhere there was a shortage of boats, submarine chasers, guns, small arms; the war had caught us utterly unprepared. It was no fault of the War and Navy Departments. They had begged for these things, but Congress had seen no reason for providing them.

It was the splendid constancy of the Reserve in these trying

The boy took kindly to his job, and made friends with his fellows, two in particular. "When we get to France," he said to them, "if we can get leave together, we'll go up to Paris, and I'll show you the town." When he got to Paris, he went to his bankers and made himself known, got what money he neededhe had a large letter of credit, for his father was a multi millionaire and proceeded to the hotel aforesaid.

circumstances that makes its history truly a story of enthusiasm. What their hands found to do they did with their might. They drilled, they learned their job as well as they could, with never a sign of discouragement, though thousands of those who had enlisted had not even been called to the colors for lack of a place to put them. But those who did serve got their reward. Some of us who remember certain boys when they went to camp, and who saw them two or three months later, were amazed at the change in them. They had been made over physically and mentally. Boys who had been pale, anæmic, stooping, shrinking, came home on leave strapping, upstanding chaps with clear eye and fine color, with self-reliance and dependableness showing in every word and gesture. If the fathers and mothers of this country who didn't raise their sons to be soldiers or sailors could see what a few months had done for the boys of the Naval Reserve, it is inconceivable that they should not clamor for the same thing for their own sons. The cause of universal service would be won on this showing alone.

It has been said that the camps of the selective service are melting-pots where the young soldiers are transmuted into Americans than which there could be nothing more useful. But with the N. R.there was no need for this process. The men were one hundred per cent Americans when they enlisted, and they were in deadly earnest. They were of every sort, and the immediate causes for their enlistment were sometimes out of the common. There was, for instance, the captain of a Standard Oil tanker whose ship was sunk by a submarine in the Mediterranean. He was mad all the way through, and hurried home to enlist as a common sailor in the N. R. The recruiting officer said: "Why don't you go and get another ship? Such men as you are needed; besides, you will get big money, and your life will be insured."

"To h- with the big money!" replied the still raging skipper. "What I want is to get a crack at those d-d babykillers." And he persisted in enlisting.

Then there was the retired navy boatswain. When he came to enlist, the officer asked him also why he came. "Well, sir, you see, the people in my town don't understand about this war, and I had to enlist to set them an example."

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If the older men show patriotism, the devotion of the younger ones is no less splendid, and sometimes very touching. There is young B, whose father is at the head of perhaps the largest bookstore in New York City. Some one heard that the boy had enlisted as a stoker, and asked his father about it. Yes," said the elder B 66 ; you see, his eyes are not very good, and he was afraid he would not be able to serve his country at all, so he took this job, where eyes are not needed." To serve in the bottom of a ship, with no chance to fight backexcept by keeping the ship moving; with none to see what is going on, and with every chance of being drowned like a rat if the ship goes down, is one of the finest jobs in the service, and such men as young B- "deserve to have a poem written about them," as one appreciative admirer said.

The matter of this boy brings up another stoker story. Soon after our first ships reached the other side three especially grimy young stokers appeared at one of the smartest hotels in Paris and asked for rooms. That particular house was not in the habit of entertaining guests of that quality, but the manager thought it would never do to turn away the first representatives of their new allies who had come to his door, so he took them in. After they had cleaned up a little, but were still grimy, they ordered the best possible dinner, which one of them paid for with a 1,000-franc note. The manager became interested, asked a question or two, and the whole story came out. One of them had hastened to enlist at the beginning of the war, and something like the following conversation ensued: "What can you do?" asked the recruiting officer. "Don't know, sir."

16 "Ever been to sea

"Yes, sir. Made several trips to Europe as a passenger." 66 Know how to row?"

"Yes, sir, in a shell. College crew."

"No other experience?"

66

No, sir."

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Well, you look like a good, husky chap. I'll enlist you as a stoker. We need 'em."

The rush of college and school boys to the N. R. brought in a great number of such fellows as this. Many of them enlisted at Newport, because their friends spent the summer there. It was a standing joke in the early days before the Government had provided quarters for them, and they were living all over the town, that many of them drove down to the boats in the morning in their own cars, and their chauffeurs drove down for them in the afternoon. Over at the Brooklyn Navy-Yard, one day an officer was starting for Pelham Bay when his chauffeur cut his hand badly, and announced that he could not drive. "Can any of you men drive a Ford?" asked the officer, turning to a group of N. R. men standing near. "I can, sir," said one of them, touching his cap. "But have you far to go?" "Pelham Bay." "If you don't mind waiting a few minutes, sir, I'll get my own car, and we'll make better time." He disappeared through the Navy-Yard gate, and in a few minutes reappeared with a Rolls-Royce.

One N. R. jacky subscribed for $90,000 of Liberty bonds, and a group subscribed for $76,000. But the N. R. is no rich man's club.

Wealth is purely an incident, and gives men no especial value, except that it sometimes implies self-sacrifice and generally implies education. But there is often far greater self-sacrifice on the part of the man who gives up a job in a machine shop certainly there is great unselfishness on the part of the mother whom he may be helping to support-and many of the best-educated men have no wealth but their salaries, yet prove among the most valuable men in the service. Two instructors at Columbia, one a Harvard, the other a Yale graduate, enlisted as ship's cooks because, although both were deep-water yachtsmen, they modestly doubted whether they were qualified for anything better. It is needless to say that something better was found for them to do, and they are now instructors at Pelham Bay, helping to turn out the officers whom the Navy so greatly needs. Another man who enlisted as a ship's cook is a well-known sculptor who thought himself too old for anything else. He, too, has a better job, but he earned it by good work, and he is prouder of the whistle which he carries as boatswain's mate, and which is the outward and visible sign of his promotion, than ever he was of a prize at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. Meanwhile the fact that so many rich men's sons are in the N. R. results in one fact-it is the best possible school for learning democracy. When the boy from Groton, the clerk from Wanamaker's, the apprentice from a machine shop, and the hand from a Rhode Island cotton-mill have pulled an oar in the same boat, have played on the same ball team, have served on the same submarine-chaser in the North Sea, there is apt to be a clearer comprehension of each other's point of view, a more lively realization of the fact that " a man's a man for a' that."

Everybody is equal, and as promotion comes to the boy who makes good, utterly and entirely regardless of money and "pull,” the man who is really a man comes to the front even before he gets on active service. Which brings us to what is the most interesting and perhaps the most important part of the work of the N. R.

There is no naval Plattsburg, and the Reserve has to take its place as well as it can, though it is sorely hampered by being obliged to work informally and, in a sense, unrecognized by the authorities. The same sort of work is going on at all the sta tions; perhaps the best idea of it can be given by telling what is done at Pelham Bay, which is the model camp of the whole service.

The site at Pelham was selected with the utmost care from several which were offered by the city of New York. It is in a public park, with water on three sides, offering perfect facilities for boat practice, and it was planned and built with the most careful concern for the comfort and welfare of the men. The buildings (of wood, of course) are skillfully designed for their purpose; there is a central heating plant, so that the danger of

fire is negligible, and there is now an adequate supply of rowing and sailing cutters, barges, whaleboats, launches, and two training vessels. On top of the long Executive Building there is a "bridge," with semaphores and all the paraphernalia for signaling, where the men learn that important branch of duty, and can practice it on the fleets of boats in the bay below and to bridges on other buildings. The food, which is excellent, is served on the "cafeteria" plan, and the bill of fare is scientific in food values and very varied. There is a Y. M. C. A. hut, of course, and a hostess committee, formed of ladies who receive and entertain the men. Nothing seems to have been neglected. The most important thing about the camp is, of course, the men's health. So admirable have been the hygienic conditions at Pelham that at hardly any time has the percentage of sick amounted to one-quarter of one per cent. With seven or eight thousand men in the camp or passing through it, in spite of the severest winter on record, and in spite of the fact that it is necessary to put the men through a drastically hardening process so that they may be able to stand the exposure of service in the North Sea and even worse places, there have been only about a dozen cases of pneumonia, and not a single death from that disease. The only case where a man died of it was when a Reservist caught it and died while on leave. Has any other camp such a record?

So great has been the all-round success of the camp that the Secretary of the Navy has ordered it to be increased by adding accommodations for ten thousand additional men. That speaks for itself.

When the recruit joins, he is taken to the Probation Camp, where he is stripped, washed, inoculated against typhoid, etc., has his teeth looked after if necessary, and is clad in a Government uniform. Then he is marched into a barbed-wire inclosure, where he must remain till he has passed the period when he could possibly develop a contagious disease. But he must pass something else the microscopic scrutiny of his officers. If he is lazy or indifferent or too stupid, out he goes; they will have none of him. The Reserve is too busy training men who are at least embryo seamen, and preferably petty, warrant, or commissioned officers, to turn itself into a reform school or an institution for the feeble-minded. This fact is impressed on the men once a week in the talk which the commanding officer gives them on their duties and opportunities, and it is on these latter that he lays stress, publicly and privately. Every recruit carries a possible ensign's commission in his ditty-bag, and he is thoroughly encouraged to bring it out. The hawk eyes of his officers will quickly find him out if he shows a desire to develop. First he will be given a petty officer's rating to see how he handles men. If he makes good, he is encouraged to study for a warrant. This gained, if he still is a success, he is helped to study for an ensign's commission, and the Navy Department sends up a board, headed by a rear-admiral, to examine him. The school which was at Columbia University has moved out to the camp, and turns out ensigns in two branches, deck officers and radio. The only complaint of the gentlemen who do this work is that the Navy is in such need of trained men that it carries off their pupils before they have time to educate them properly.

In the Probation Camp the men get their first instruction in cleanliness (that most important feature), in obeying orders promptly and without question, in saluting, in the customs of the service and in nautical phraseology, and in infantry drill; for Jack must be soldier and sailor both when need be. And as one walks through this section of the camp one is struck by the efforts which are made to give the enlisted man some rudimentary knowledge of how to do his duty aboard ship long before he ever gets there. There is instruction in knotting and splicing ropes, there is a platform from which a man is taught to cast hand-lines and on which there are cleats for him to fasten cables to, and on top of one of the dormitories there are platforms from which he is taught how to heave the lead, both right and left handed. It reminds one of the remark of a witty woman when she heard that a friend had been appointed ground officer" in the Aviation Corps. "Well," she said, "I suppose the next thing we hear of will be dehydrated admirals."

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When a man has made good in the three weeks' course in the Probation Camp, he comes into the main camp and goes on with his training as an infantryman and artilleryman (they have a

number of guns of different sorts), is taught to row and manage motor craft, and learns all the forms of signaling-to be, in short, as good a seaman as he can be made without going to sea. The whole camp is seething with enthusiasm. The other day I happened to look out of a window in the executive building and saw a Jacky walking across the parade ground waving his arms like a windmill. St. Vitus's dance? Not at all; he was simply practicing his semaphore signals on his way to the "bridge." It recalled a story which General Bell tells of Yap hank. One of his staff was stopped late at night by the order "Halt! Who goes there?" After the proper exchange of question and answer the staff officer was dismissed with the cheerful remark out of the dark: "That's all right; don't mind me. I'm only practicing.'

This enthusiasm on the part of both officers and men produces a fine crop of ensigns (to say nothing of petty officers and seamen), though by no means as many as the service needs. Consequently, for any ambitious young man who wishes to ob tain a commission in the navy there is no better or quicker way than to join the N. R. and work like fury. There is plenty of room at the top, where he will be welcomed with open arms and will be working amid congenial surroundings, in personal comfort, and under the eye of intelligent and sympathetic officers. As to these officers, who have in many cases given up lucrative positions, sometimes at the head of big business concerns or important departments in colleges, or what not, it is impossible to speak of them with too much respect or admiration, though they would be the last to claim either. They are too busy with their jobs to think of anything else, but they will have their reward in the regard of their fellows, if nowhere else.

There is another branch of the N. R. the importance of which cannot be overestimated-the hydro-airplane service, which has its station at Bayshore. As the mastery of the air seems likely to settle the fate of war on the land, so the hydro-airplane will have an important influence in controlling the submarine menace, and so reducing the danger to convoys as well as in many other directions. There are over two hundred young men in training at Bayshore, and many of them are ready for service. Some of them, indeed, are already actively employed "somewhere on the great deep," and no branch of the N. R. will have greater opportunities for usefulness, a better chance for distinction, or be more often heard of in the future.

There is one more institution affiliated with the N. R. which deserves a word of mention-the Naval Prison at Portsmouth Navy-Yard. Last spring Secretary Daniels asked Mr. Thomas Mott Osborne, who did so much to make Sing Sing a place fit for human beings instead of wild beasts, to take charge of the Portsmouth prison. When Mr. Osborne consented, he and his assistants received commissions in the Naval Reserve, which thus became a sort of foster mother to the prison. Military-or naval-law in case of war is necessarily very severe. How much it needs such mitigation as it can get in its administration from a man like Commander Osborne (to give him his new title) can be guessed from the following incident.

A fourteen-year old boy who had enlisted in the Navy had been granted leave of absence from, let us say, June 28 to July 5. As he left the navy-yard where he was stationed he over heard some one say, "The ship does not sail till August 5." He connected this in some way in his not over-clear mind with his own leave, and assumed that he need not come back till August 5. Consequently he remained quietly at home on his father's farm without the slightest idea that he was doing wrong till he was arrested and brought back as a deserter. Technically that is what he was, and the court martial gave him three years in the Portsmouth prison; but when such Draconian sentences as this have to be inflicted it is perfectly clear that all the humanizing influences at Commander Osborne's command are urgently needed.

Happily, with all the hard side of life in the service of our country and there is plenty of it, beyond question--it has also its comic relief, oftenest, in such a body as the N. R., arising from ignorance. There was the case of the young commander of a "chaser" who mistook a floating mine for a buoy, and started to make his ship fast to it till he was warned off by the frantic shrieks of every siren within sight and sound. Not less naïve was the young Reservist who wanted a quiet place to smoke