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
President Hibben of Princeton, who ought to know the American
undergraduate if anybody does, said recently: "Young men are capable of
far greater amounts of intensive work day in and day out than we had
dreamed of; capable of greater concentration of mind upon their tasks.
They respond more quickly than we have conceived to the call of duty.
The sense of responsibility is there latent, and we teachers must
endeavor to quicken and to appeal to it. We have seen that when the
occasion comes these young men rise to meet it."
We can't very well stage a world war for the purpose, and I don't think
we need wait for any such crisis to bring it out. There is in every
normal, wholesome-minded student some motor nerve that can be touched in
such a way as to release that type of coördinated energy which we call a
sense of responsibility. This all goes back to knowing our men and women
and establishing human contacts and human confidences.
In spite of individual disappointments, and as a college dean, I have
had my share, I am confident that the normal young American either
already possesses as a motive force some worth-while aim or that he can
be guided toward such an aim if approached in the right way.
Let me quote a paragraph or so from the report of the War Department
Committee on Education:
"Because the war did completely organize the nation for a united drive
and thus did expose a magnificent national morale, many are inclined to
believe that war is necessary to call forth such consecration and
self-forgetful service. Analysis of the war training, however, reveals a
point of view and a method of procedure that is definitely designed to
develop team-play and to enhance morale whether there be war or not. If
these methods are applied to education in times of peace, they certainly
will produce some effect even though the result is not as profoundly
striking as it was during the war. Among the many significant features
of war training, the following are mentioned as worthy of particular
consideration for transfer to school practice:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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