Some War-time Lessons: The Soldier's Standards of Conduct; The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship; What Have We Learned? — John Shaqi
Some War-time Lessons: The Soldier's Standards of Conduct; The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship; What Have We Learned?Keppel, Frederick P. (Frederick Paul)
Philosophy
Some War-time Lessons: The Soldier's Standards of Conduct; The War As a Practical Test of American Scholarship; What Have We Learned?
Keppel, Frederick P. (Frederick Paul)
World War, 1914-1918
In proving the case for the American scholar, as I think we can prove
it, we should not be beguiled into the pleasant task of recording the
deeds of scholars and gentlemen when the deeds were those of the gallant
gentleman rather than of the scholar _per se_. We have one here in our
own academic family whose lieutenant's bars I should be as proud to wear
as the stars of any of our generals. Nor need we, I think, cite the
instances where the rigorous training of the scholar clearly laid the
foundation for great accomplishment in some general field of
administration. The man whom we can thank perhaps more than any other
for the brilliant conduct of our war finance was seventeen years ago
editor-in-chief of the _Columbia Law Review_. We may well turn with
pride, but we don't need him to prove our point, to the scholar of this
university, formerly president of this Chapter, who, from his own
talents and experience and his alert sense of scholarship in others, has
earned the place which he now holds as educational director of the
largest university in the world, the A.E.F. University at Beaune.
* * * * *
Our case rests, as I say, upon the direct applications of scholarship,
and not only upon their quality, but on their range. A single division
of the National Research Council, in its report for 1918, showed work of
national significance by the scholars in physics, mathematics, and
allied fields toward the solution of no fewer than sixty-eight
different problems, every one of which needed for its solution men with
training and knowledge and vision. At the outset, who among us had the
slightest conception of the complexity of the adaptations to warfare of
what was known to modern scholarship? We knew that the war was mounting
into the air, but who had any realization of the adjustments which this
involved? Fifteen fundamental problems based on pure physics promptly
arose with reference to instruments for airplane operation. For example,
at night and in the clouds, the aviator must have before his eyes a dial
which will indicate the slightest deviation from his course. Seven
problems had to do with airplane photography. As the art of camouflage
advanced, for instance, color filters had to be devised for its
detection from above. Seven additional problems had to do with factors
of construction and maintenance, as fuel efficiency. Nine others
affected ballooning; and the balloon, as the war developed, came to be
of greater and greater importance. Eleven studies were in signalling:
one, for example, a device for secret daylight signalling, with a range
of five miles or more. And please remember that all these were the task
of one branch of one organization within the field of pure science. By
common consent, the dullest branch of physics was held to be acoustics,
but since 1914 the whole question of sound-ranging has been in the hands
of experts in acoustics. A device developed by American physicists gave
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