acity with
hospitality and quickly impressed upon it a soldierly character. The
young men brought to their training habits which they had formed for
success as civilians, but which their patriotic enthusiasm rendered
easily available in new lines of endeavor for the service of the
country. They brought, too, another element of great value. They were
assembled from all parts of the country; they were accustomed to the
democracy of the college and high school; they recognized themselves as
new and temporary adventurers in a military life; and they, therefore,
reflected into our military preparation the fresh and invigorating
atmosphere of our industrial and commercial democracy. This has
undoubtedly contributed to the establishment of a happy spirit which
prevails throughout the Army and has made it easy for the young men
chosen under the selective service act to fall in with the training and
mode of life which the military training camp requires. An effort was
made by the department as far as possible to assign these young officers
to the training of troops assembled from their own homes. By this means,
a preexisting sympathy was used, and admiration and respect between
officer and man was transferred from the home to the camp.

[Sidenote: The three divisions of the Army.]

[Sidenote: Enlistments may be for the period of the war.]

[Sidenote: Men anxious to get to France soon.]

[Sidenote: Traditions of military organizations preserved.]

The three divisions of the Army, namely, the Regular Army, the National
Guard, and the National Army, were very different organizations as we
contemplated them at the time of the passage of the act for the
temporary increase of the Military Establishment. The Regular Army was a
veteran establishment of professional soldiers; the National Guard a
volunteer organization of local origin maintained primarily for the
preservation of domestic order in the several States, with an emergency
duty toward the national defense; the National Army an unknown quantity,
made up of men to be selected arbitrarily by tests and rules as yet to
be formulated, unorganized, untrained, existing only in theory and,
therefore, problematical as to its spirit and the length of time
necessary to fit it for use. Congress, however, most wisely provided as
far as possible for an elimination of these differences. Enlistments in
the Regular Army and National Guard were authorized to be made for the
period of the wa