The fourth lesson of which I wish to speak is that a high aim and ideal is what counts most of all, what lifts the individual up from selfishness and sloth. To bind the country together and to make the transformation which still seems miraculous, we had a noble national aim, a complete dedication to the task before us, an utter absence of any selfish or self-seeking factor in the whole enterprise. The conduct of our soldiers, their submission to a discipline to which most of them were completely unused was, I think, in a very large measure due to the recognition of this aim. We recognized it as a nation and we recognized it in one another. The standard of contact set by our soldiers during the days of conflict is unique in military history. Whole divisions went for months without a single court-martial. The reason was, more than anything else, the national assumption that they would give a good account of themselves and the fact that they felt themselves in training for the championship, and no man wanted to miss his chance on the battlefield for the sake of a selfish indulgence. Some of the experiments in conduct tried in the American Expeditionary Forces were extraordinary in their success. The leave areas, an immense enterprise, were run on the basis of absolute freedom to the enlisted man. He lived in the best hotels in Europe and amused himself in casinos where crowned heads had been in the habit of gambling away the money of their subjects. He had no roll calls, no taps, no officers in sight, no military machinery whatever. He arose when he pleased, either before or after his breakfast; he ate and drank when he pleased, and he stayed out as late as he pleased. The physical and moral effect of this absolute change from the military régime was a very interesting and instructive phenomenon, but that is not the point I wish to make. Out of the thousands and thousands of men who were sent to these leave areas, there was hardly a single case in which a man abused the trust which was put upon him or failed to turn up on time to go back to the grind of military duty. This could never have been done with soldiers of another type, with soldiers lacking an ideal. Someone has recently written that fine minds have been finely touched by the war, and base minds basely. He might have added that wise minds have been wisely touched, and foolish minds foolishly. In general, I think it may fairly be said that when the appeal was to the finest in a man's character, the result was correspondingly fine. * * * * *