"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:
"As a primary policy, a nation at war is obliged to recognize that every individual is an asset capable of useful service in some particular line of work of direct benefit to the country. In order to make the most efficient use of all its resources, it is necessary to make strenuous exertions to discover what each individual is best qualified to do and to train each to use his abilities in the most effective manner. Applied to education this fundamental attitude produces two results that are of importance in the development of morale. The teacher's point of view shifts from a critical one, with attention focused on discovering whether the individual measures up to the academic standards fixed by school authorities, to one of friendly, not to say eager interest to discover what each individual really can do well. The student's spirit also changes from one of discouragement and doubt of his ability ever to make good, to one of interest and desire for achievement. Both of these results are of large importance in releasing energy for both the teacher and the student. They also have an immediate bearing on the enhancement of morale."
In any place of campaign to this end within a college or university, the first thing to do is to build around that vague but very real emotion called college spirit, to supplement this by guiding our young people to enlist in worth-while, nation-wide or world-wide causes (we are singularly provincial about this in America), and by ensuring better teaching and supervision and better coördination of work.
There is no question that we have underestimated both the American undergraduate's capacity for intellectual work and his real pleasure in it when he feels it worth while. One of my friends was telling me of his experiences as commanding officer of one of the ground schools for aviators, where a large proportion of the candidates were college undergraduates, and I asked him if he had had any troubles as to discipline. "Yes indeed," he replied, "night after night we'd catch some fellows studying with a peep-light under their blankets, after taps had sounded."
Any doubts as to the instinctive reaction of the normal, healthy young American toward educational opportunities were dispelled by the experiences of the army in France after the armistice. The let-down, after the terrific physical and emotional strain, the impatience regarding any delay as to return home, combined to make a pretty serious situation as to the morale of our troops. After some misguided and nearly disastrous experiments as to the curative properties of heavy drill and strict discipline, the A.E.F. recognized the necessity for a prompt and thorough stimulation of all the welfare activities, and a real educational program; and it was straight, old-fashioned book-work more than it was the movies, or athletics, more even than Miss Elsie Janis, which turned the corner for us. In all, more than 200,000 men volunteered for the privilege of studying. The military order was often reversed and majors sat at the feet of the corporals or privates who had been selected as teachers. The reports as to the intensity of the work of teachers and students alike should put any of us professionals to shame.
Just now we are hearing a great deal about the benefits of discipline. I think what the speakers are really talking about, though they don't recognize it themselves, is the benefit of the state of mind which accepts and welcomes discipline. We are not, even as the result of the war, a disciplined people in the sense that Germany is, or was, and we can thank God for it. We shall never want in this country a general subordination of the individual will and initiative to external control. Discipline is a means and not an end. If discipline, as such, externally imposed, were so important a factor in success as many people seem to think to-day, we could look through a list of ex-enlisted men in the army and navy—I mean the men enlisted and discharged during peace time—and find a relatively large number who made conspicuously good records after returning to civil life. As a matter of fact, we find nothing of the kind.
What we do find is that not a few enlisted men who chose the army or the navy as their permanent career have won commissions and made fine records. There were no better general officers in the war than men like Harbord of our army and Robertson of the British, both of whom rose from the ranks. But isn't it fair to say that the discipline imposed on these men was accepted gladly and accepted in the terms of their fundamental interest, and that these men are not really exceptions to what I have said?
I venture to predict that there will be a very different record to tell as to the success in civil life of those men now leaving the Army, who, because they believed in the cause and wished to participate to the full in the great enterprise, gladly submitted themselves to the discipline for the purpose of increasing their efficiency.
In a month or so you can teach an enthusiastic man, who is fired by a big idea, all the discipline he needs for carrying out his duties and profiting by his opportunities, but you can't reverse the process and incite enthusiasms as a result of the application of discipline.