No youth considered himself properly dressed without a huge _boutonnière_, sometimes of flowers but oftener a paper monstrosity as big as a cabbage. Sometimes a lad appeared with a buttonhole bouquet of vegetables. Anything for a joke. Thus dressed, furnished with a guitar or an accordion, “the bunch,” as our slang would call them, fared forth to have a last good time before going under discipline. For the time being they owned the town, and nobody complained of their noise or their pranks. I had seen this before the war, but I was unprepared to see the custom retained. Yet this April in Paris, in Bordeaux, and several other cities I saw the same singing groups, the same absurd decorations, the same fun-making. The class of 1918 was younger than the class of 1914, but it was every bit as exuberant. Four years of war and desolation, of sickening anxiety and cruel bereavement, were powerless to depress the spirit of young France. Early on the morning of April eighteenth I started on a journey from the Orleans station, and there, filling the place with laughter and excited conversation, I saw about a hundred of the class of 1918 leave for their cantonment. Their mothers and fathers and sweethearts were there seeing them off, just as we have been seeing our boys off to training camps this year. But these French fathers and mothers have suffered bitter losses. Hardly a family in France that has not known bereavement. Most of the women I saw that April morning wore deep mourning. Even though they wept in their hearts, they sent their boys away with laughter and brave cheer. With bantering words on their lips, their hearts were saying: “O France, loved Mother, take one more of my sons. Like those who have died he was mine only until you needed him more.” Their train left the station ahead of mine, and until it was far down the line these great fathers and mothers continued to wave and cheer. Then they clasped hands and silently went home. After four years of war. It made me ashamed of every wavering moment I have allowed myself since we entered this conflict. This is a time when the women of America must take stock of themselves, when they must consider whether or not they have grown up to the stature of the women overseas; whether they can keep step with the men who have gone over to fight beside the French, English, Belgian and Italian soldiers. For those women of the world war are very great in mind and spirit. Those young Americans are growing fast. They will never be the same again. We sing about keeping the home fires burning, “Till the boys come home.” But we have got to face one big fact. When the boys come home they will have become men, and men of a totally different type than any to which we have been accustomed. They will be bigger, broader, finer, in body and mind. They will be better educated. They will expect more of their women.