e of military strength.
Nobody will suppose that, with the growing intricacy of military science
and the industrial arts related to it, a country can dispense with
trained professional soldiers. The fundamentals of military discipline
remain substantially unchanged and, in order that we may assemble
rapidly and effectively adequate military forces, there must always be
in the country a body of men to whom the life of a soldier is a career
and who have acquired from their youth those qualities which have, from
the beginning, distinguished the graduates of the Military Academy at
West Point: the disciplined honor, the unfaltering courage, the
comprehension of sacrifice, and that knowing obedience which proceeds
from constant demonstrations of the fact that effective cooperation in
war requires instant compliance with the command of authority, the sort
of obedience which knows that a battle field is no place for a
parliament. Added to these mental and moral qualities, the body of
professional soldiers must devote themselves unremittingly to the
development of the arts of war, and when the emergency arises must be
familiar with the uses of science and the applications of industry in
military enterprise. But these training camps have taught us that, given
this relatively small body of professional soldiers, the Nation has at
hand an apparently inexhaustible body of splendid material which can be
rapidly made to supplement the professional soldier.

[Sidenote: Athletes from the colleges.]

[Sidenote: Adaptability of American youth.]

[Sidenote: Atmosphere of industrial and commercial democracy.]

[Sidenote: Many officers assigned to training of troops from their
homes.]

When the first camp was opened, the colleges, military schools, and high
schools of the country poured out a stream of young men whose minds had
been trained in the classroom and whose bodies had been made supple and
virile on the athletic field. They came with intelligence, energy, and
enthusiasm and, under a course of intensive training, rapidly took on
the added discipline and capacities necessary to equip them for the
duties of officers. They have taken their places in the training camps
and are daily demonstrating the value of their education and the
adaptability of the spirit of American youth. A more salutary result
would be impossible to imagine. The trained professional soldiers of the
Army received this great body of youthful enthusiasm and cap