old-time regulars did not help a bit. This was to
"give 'em plenty of drill and make 'em so tired they won't have energy
to get into mischief," but as one returning artillery officer pointed
out to me, when a battery a month before has fired 50,000 rounds of
high-explosive at the Boche, and worked its guns over craters and
through thickets, a drill with dummy ammunition on a parade ground is
almost a justification for mutiny. Wiser counsel soon prevailed and the
welfare work, which had slumped with the rest, was again brought up to
concert pitch. It was for the first time in France, properly coordinated
under Army control. The misfits and the workers who had worn themselves
out were returned to this country and their places taken by fresh blood.
I remember in this connection a paragraph tucked in the middle of the
uncompromising officialdom of the daily departmental cable: "Send over
plenty of welfare workers and remember the best men you can send are the
women."

Let me take this chance to say a word about the criticisms we have been
hearing of this welfare work abroad. In the first place, the success of
the work in this country among the men in training set up an expectation
which it was humanly impossible to meet under the conditions overseas;
in other words, the men who went over assumed standards as to the
minimum amount of attention which it was their right to expect, the like
of which had never been dreamed in the history of mankind. As a matter
of fact, and taken as a whole, the treatment which they received was
admirable and the comparatively few who now doubt the truth of this
statement will come to realize it as time goes on. They will see that
the misfits, the over-wrought, stood out in their minds like men out of
alignment at parade, that they simply did not notice the thousands of
men and women whose work for them was all that their own mothers could
have asked.

The following official cablegram records the state of educational,
recreation and welfare work at the end of April, 1919.

"Educational activities: Roughly there are 209,000 students embraced in
this scheme. Ten thousand are at A.E.F. University at Beaune, some 7,000
are attending French universities. 3,000 attending British. There are
roughly 130,000 men at Post Schools, which correspond to our elementary
schools in United States. 55,000 are attending the Divisional
Educational Schools, which correspond to our High schools. In addition
there a