s hold that what is best for
the many can be achieved without cramping the personal life or
blighting individuality and initiative. Within the frame of our
system, we can achieve obedience and discipline without destroying
independence and impulse.

This is idealism, though we seldom think about it in that light.
Further, it is all the better that in the beginning these impressions
are developed obliquely, rather than through the direct approach of
reading a lecture on ideals and ethics, since it means that the man is
assisted to reach certain conclusions by himself, and as Kant has
said, those things which a man learns pretty much on his own become
the ideas that he is least likely to forget.

Looking at this subject in its largest aspect, it should be perfectly
clear that any institution must know what its ideals are before it can
become coherent and confident, and that there must be present in the
form of clearly available ideas an imaginative conception of the good
at which the institution aims.

This is fully recognized in the American armed establishment. For many
years, the program of indoctrinating military ideals has been
inseparably linked with instruction in democratic ideals, teaching as
to the American way of life and clear statement of the policies and
purposes of the Government of the United States in its relations with
all others powers and peoples.

Moreover, it is an accepted principle in all services that this
mission can not be carried forward competently except by those
officers who are directly in charge of forces. It is not a job for
chaplains or orientation specialists, because it cannot flourish
unless it is in the hands of those leaders whom men know well and in
whom they place their confidence. When men are well led, they become
fully receptive to the whole body of ideas which their leaders see fit
to put before them.

There are two points which follow, as a matter of course.

An officer's ability to talk effectively on these or other subjects to
his men can be no better than his information, irrespective of his
zeal or of his own firm belief in the ideals of his country and
service.

All other things being equal, his effectiveness will depend on the
extent to which he participates in all of the other affairs of
organization. If he is remote from the spirit of his own unit, and
indifferent to the varying activities which enter into the building of
that spirit, he will not have a symp