It was just as busy with the class in automatic weapons. On Monday they had close order drill, barrage drill, a lecture on direct fire, another on indirect fire, practise in range firing and the use of range finders. Finally they had an hour’s pistol practise. They had a great deal of artillery target practise that week, also a lecture on trench routing, a conference on indirect fire tables, whatever they may be, and two days’ hard work in the gas school. You can not, you know, just pick up a gas mask, put it on and successfully fight. You have to learn how. I tried on a gas mask and couldn’t breath in it five minutes. So the soldiers have to learn how to wear their masks, and a great deal besides before they can safely face a gas attack. They hear lectures on how gas is used, preparation for the attacks, on the mechanics of the box respirator used by our army, and on the effects of gas. They learn the history of gas warfare and the German orders and reports concerning it. They learn what to do during and after an attack. They drill in actual gas chambers. The officers in this school had much more technical work. A tactical course for field officers interested me greatly. The men studied the technique of grenade, trench mortar and one pound cannon firing. Trench fighting, when I visited the school, was being vigorously studied, and I heard part of an intensely interesting lecture on “The Attack in Trench Warfare,” from a lieutenant-colonel of the British army who had led many such attacks himself since 1915. It seems odd to hear of seminars in war wisdom, but they have them there, officers who had experienced trench fighting sitting around a table and discussing nice questions of tactics, just as a short time ago some of them were sitting around university tables and discussing political economy or English literature. They had a course for signal men which was very valuable. Field telegraphs and telephones play an exciting part in modern battles, and the students in this course devoted much time to buzzer telegraph work. They learned how to string field telephones, and to use them. They had lectures on ciphers and signals, endless and intricate. They learned to read maps. In the aero school they were training aerial photographers and teaching them how to interpret photographs taken in the skies. The flyers were being taught to signal troops from above and to read army signals thousands of feet below. What the soldiers on the ground seemed to be doing was spreading freshly washed towels and sheets on the grass, but what they were really doing, it appeared, was asking questions of the aviators about the enemy’s maneuvers.