niform; but usually some one had to know
about him and invite him to his place, a very sharp contrast to the
business men and lawyers who came down to Washington by the trainload to
impress us with their capacity to do any job which involved a commission
of properly high degree.

In general, I should say that the individuals in the universities met
the test better than the institutions themselves. The latter did not, it
seems to me, as institutions, grasp the situation. Very few studied the
question of the assignment of their specialists as a problem in
conservation as well as in publicity; and as far as the use of their
facilities in the training of soldiers and sailors is concerned, the War
Department and the Navy Department had literally to teach them how to
meet the war conditions. Such help as came from organized bodies of
scholars came rather from the learned societies than from the academic
groups.

Then there was a further difficulty, particularly among the younger men,
though not wholly among them. The expert's job, and hence inclusively
the scholar's job, is relatively safe so far as the immediate risk of
death is concerned, though not the risk of shortening life through
overwork. One Columbia man, well over the draft age, told me frankly
that he would gladly give up an important public office he held for the
privilege of fighting with his hands, but he could not be tempted by an
opportunity to fight with his head. Through this same impulse many and
many a man attempted to conceal his special knowledge in order that he
might fight in the line. The Army Committee on Classification of
Personnel, which was in itself a beautiful example of scholarship in
practical application, was able, however, in most instances to pluck out
the expert from the line and set him, whether he was willing or not, at
the task for which he was particularly adapted and particularly needed.

* * * * *

What, from the point of view of the non-scholar, can be said as to the
general usefulness of the men and women (for the women did their share)
who came forward or were brought forward to take this trial by fire on
behalf of American scholarship? First of all, the scholar must be a real
scholar; he must have the natural ability and the long and rigorous
training necessary for accurate observation, and observation of the kind
which, if I may be forgiven a most unscholarly metaphor, includes the
ability to d