ere experts in divers branches of technical education.

Col. Ronald Campbell retired from bayonet instruction and devoted his
genius and his heart (which was bigger than the point of a bayonet) to
the physical instruction of the army and the recuperation of battle-worn
men. I liked him better in that job, and saw the real imagination of the
man at work, and his amazing, self-taught knowledge of psychology. When
men came down from the trenches, dazed, sullen, stupid, dismal, broken,
he set to work to build up their vitality again, to get them interested
in life again, and to make them keen and alert. As they had been
dehumanized by war, so he rehumanized them by natural means. He had a
farm, with flowers and vegetables, pigs, poultry, and queer beasts. A
tame bear named Flanagan was the comic character of the camp. Colonel
Campbell found a thousand qualities of character in this animal, and
brought laughter back to gloomy boys by his description of them. He had
names for many of his pets--the game-cocks and the mother-hens; and he
taught the men to know each one, and to rear chicks, and tend flowers,
and grow vegetables. Love, and not hate, was now his gospel. All his
training was done by games, simple games arousing intelligence, leading
up to elaborate games demanding skill of hand and eye. He challenged the
whole army system of discipline imposed by authority by a new system
of self-discipline based upon interest and instinct. His results
were startling, and men who had been dumb, blear-eyed, dejected,
shell-shocked wrecks of life were changed quite quickly into bright,
cheery fellows, with laughter in their eyes.

"It's a pity," he said, "they have to go off again and be shot to
pieces. I cure them only to be killed--but that's not my fault. It's the
fault of war."

It was Colonel Campbell who discovered "Willie Woodbine," the fighting
parson and soldier's poet, who was the leading member of a traveling
troupe of thick-eared thugs. They gave pugilistic entertainments to
tired men. Each of them had one thick ear. Willie Woodbine had two. They
fought one another with science (as old professionals) and challenged
any man in the crowd. Then one of them played the violin and drew the
soul out of soldiers who seemed mere animals, and after another fight
Willie Woodbine stepped up and talked of God, and war, and the weakness
of men, and the meaning of courage. He held all those fellows in his
hand, put a spell on them, ke