se and reduction, may at the end of the month, if he
possesses sufficient vitality, come out feeling fine. But if he repeats
the process of letting himself go, Nature puts on the fat more and more
and a second severe reduction becomes necessary. And it is only a
question of time as to the exhaustion of any man's vitality through
these extremes.

TIME THE GREAT ELEMENT

Any one who has had the opportunity of talking with the men in authority
who are bearing the burden of fitting a nation for the present emergency
cannot fail to be impressed with the fact that time is the great
element. We must really prepare our men, we must make them fit in the
shortest space of time that will accomplish the result. And we must
conserve our man-power. It is no longer a question of putting on such
severe work as shall weed out all but the physical giants; we are not
trying (as seemed to be the idea in the first Plattsburg camps, before
the war) to make the going so stiff as to leave us only 50 per cent. of
hardened men. We want every man who can be brought along rapidly into
condition, and not the strongest only. Hence the problem takes on a new
phase.

We all recognize that the quality and previous training of the men this
country is sending into service have a very potent bearing upon the
length of time required to make fighters of them. For, after all, the
man whose training and discipline have been along a kindred line becomes
serviceable much earlier than the man who has to acquire the necessary
spirit and quality. No one who has listened to the coaches of our
various college teams, or who has read either the preliminary prospects
of a game or the account of it afterward, but must have been impressed
with the continual repetition of emphasis upon the "fighting spirit."

Hence, when our athletes flock almost _en masse_ to the colors, it means
that we are enlisting a large number of picked men who have been in
training both mentally and physically, and who, under discipline, will
make obedient, courageous, and enthusiastic fighters. But a large number
of these have been out of college or out of strenuous athletics a year
or two, or longer, and they need physical conditioning to get back.

There is thus a new idea of considerable importance involved in these
condensed setting-up exercises. For the world does move, and those who
thought themselves up to date on boats, aeroplanes, drill, and the like
have found even within a year