The War Department will have authority to specify and control the courses of instruction to be given by the institution. The entity and power for usefulness of the institutions will be safeguarded so that when the contract ends the institutions shall be in condition to resume their functions of general education. The teaching force will be preserved so far as practicable, and this matter so treated that its members shall feel that in changing to the special intensive work desired by the Government they are rendering a vital and greatly needed service. The Government will ask from the institutions a specific service; that is, the housing, subsistence, and instruction along specified lines of a certain number of student soldiers. There will be no interference with the freedom of the institution in conducting other courses in the usual way. The contract will be for a fixed term, probably nine months, subject to renewal for a further period on reasonable notice, on terms to be agreed upon and subject to cancellation on similar terms. The story of the life of the American army behind the lines in France would fill a volume. The hospitality of the French people had something pathetic in it. They were expecting miracles of their new Allies. They were war sick. Nearly all of them had lost some father, or brother, or husband, and here came these big, hearty, joyous soldiers, full of ardor and confident of victory. It put a new spirit into all France. Their reception when they first landed was a scene of such fervor and enthusiasm as had never been known before and probably will not be known again. Soon the American soldier, in his khaki, with his wide-brimmed soft hat, became a common sight. The villagers put up bunting, calico signs, flags and had stocks of American canned goods to show in their shop windows. The children, when bold, played with the American soldiers, and the children that were more shy ventured to go up and touch an American soldier’s leg. Very old peasant ladies put on their Sunday black, and went out walking, and in some mysterious way talking with American soldiers. The village Mayors turned out and made speeches, utterly incomprehensible to the American soldiers. The engineering, building and machinery works the Americans put up were astonishing. Gangs of workers went over in thousands; many of these were college men. They dug and toiled as efficiently as any laborer. One American Major told with glee how a party of these young workers arrived straight from America at 3.30 P. M. and started digging at 5 A. M. next morning, “and they liked it, it tickled them to death.” Many of these draftees, in fact, were sick and tired of inaction in ports before their departure from America, and they welcomed work in France as if it were some great game.