In the training of the National Army, he will have all sorts of men under his command, but the spirit of the Academy will make him patient and kind with the stupid, lend a hand to the weak, give a word of cheer to the down-hearted (there will be plenty of them), and instill into all the ideal of duty. The kind of discipline that he himself received at West Point will be theirs. He will teach them to bear uncomplainingly their burdens, to be loyal and obedient, to care for their health, and to march and to fight with a spirit that knows not weariness or depression. Then when these men shall be sufficiently trained, he will go with them to France, in the wake of the first division of Regulars led by a gallant West Pointer, Major-General John J. Pershing. Here he will appreciate as never before the value of a great moral force like the spirit of West Point. It will aid him in overcoming the obstacles in his path and in those of his men, especially when the heroics of war and the novelty of being abroad have ceased to interest them, and they find themselves in the trenches in No Man’s Land. They will be drenched by the rain and burnt by the sun; they will have to endure the vermin, the mud, and the dust. They will be driven nearly mad by the shrieking and bursting of the shells, they will see their comrades killed and wounded, and perhaps they too will suffer the same fate, but they will not flinch; because he who leads them will have given them something of his spirit--a part of himself that West Point made. He must be the prop upon which they may lean, if need be, and his spirit the reservoir upon which they may draw for refreshment. And should he be called upon to pay the supreme sacrifice, he will leave them the Spirit of West Point to carry them to victory, while he goes to join the ghostly assemblage of his fellow West Pointers, standing bareheaded to salute him, as he has stood many times in the presence of the living Corps. The Corps! Bareheaded salute it, With eyes up, thanking our God That we of the Corps are treading, Where they of the Corps have trod-- They are here in ghostly assemblage, The men of the Corps long dead, And our hearts are standing attention, While we wait for their passing tread. We, sons of today, we salute you, You sons of its earlier day, We follow, close order behind you Where you have pointed the way; The long gray line of us stretches Through the years of a century told, And the last man feels to his marrow The grip of your far-off hold. Grip hands with us now, though we see not, Grip hands with us, strengthen our hearts, As the long line stiffens and straightens, With the thrill that your presence imparts. Grip hands, though it be from the shadows, While we swear, as you did of yore, Or living or dying to honor The Corps, and the Corps, and the Corps. APPENDIX