E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive/American Libraries (http://www.archive.org/details/americana) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/somewartimelesso00kepprich SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS * * * * * COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS SALES AGENTS NEW YORK LEMCKE & BUECHNER 30-32 EAST 20TH STREET LONDON HUMPHREY MILFORD AMEN CORNER, E.C. SHANGHAI EDWARD EVANS & SONS, LTD. 30 NORTH SZECHUEN ROAD * * * * * SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS The Soldier's Standards of Conduct The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship What Have We Learned? by FREDERICK PAUL KEPPEL Third Assistant Secretary of War [Illustration] New York Columbia University Press 1920 All rights reserved Copyright, 1920 By Columbia University Press Printed from type, January, 1920 Printed at The·Plimpton·Press Norwood·Mass·U·S·A TO NEWTON D. BAKER CONTENTS PAGE I. THE AMERICAN SOLDIER AND HIS STANDARDS OF CONDUCT 9 II. THE WAR AS A PRACTICAL TEST OF AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIP 36 III. WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? 66 SOME WAR-TIME LESSONS THE AMERICAN SOLDIER AND HIS STANDARDS OF CONDUCT[1] Perhaps the greatest laboratory experiment in human conduct in the history of the world has been the development of our Army during the past two years. Under the provisions of the Selective Service Law, this Army has represented a cross section of American male humanity--even more representative indeed than was intended; for in the efforts of the Local Boards to send men who could best be spared, many found their way into the ranks who were handicapped from the start by low mentality or disease. What were the guiding forces which operated upon this body of nearly four million men? In the first place, our country entered the war with a great moral purpose, untinged by any trace of national or individual selfishness. We really have to go back to the Crusades to find the like. And, as then, each man supplemented this great basal impulse with whatever was to him the strongest incentive--religion, patriotism, pride of family or state or regiment, the desire to excel in what all were attempting.