machine. By this method of calculation, the
hours flown by the air service, on all fronts, during the war can be
shown to be much over a million. The work of an ant-hill, reckoned on
the same basis, would present a stupendous total. If the heroism of the
air service, that is to say, their deeds of surpassing courage and
devotion, could be thus computed, the figure would run into thousands;
and this would be the fairest, though not the most dramatic, statement
of the case. The officers in command have always been unwilling to pay
regard to 'star turns'; what they have coveted for the service is not a
low range of achievement rising now and again into sharp fantastic
peaks, but a high tableland of duty and efficiency. They obtained their
desire, in a result more surprising than any single exploit can ever be.
They made courage and devotion the rule, not the exception. The work of
the air service on a war front consists of often-repeated short periods
of intense strain. One pilot described it well by saying that it is like
going to the dentist every day. To exact the highest standard of conduct
under this strain, not as an ideal to be aimed at, but as a working
rule, might well seem to be winding up human nature to a point where it
must break. The commanders of the air service did not hesitate to take
the risk. They trusted human nature, and were amply rewarded. The
experiences of the war revealed, to a generation that had almost
forgotten them, the ancient and majestic powers of man, the power of
his mind over his body, the power of his duty over his mind. When the
builders have been praised for their faith and for their skill, the last
word of wonder and reverence must be kept for the splendid grain of the
stuff that was given them to use in the architecture of their success.

Those matters are fittest for history which exhibit a process of growth.
The great periods of human history are not the long periods; they are
those times of change and crisis when the movements of humanity are
quickened and made visible, when the stationary habits and conservative
traditions of mankind are broken up, and one phase of civilization gives
place to another, as the bud, long and slowly matured, suddenly bursts
into flower. The story of the war in the air is a perfect example of
this quickening process, whereby developments long secretly prepared,
and delayed until hope is saddened, are mysteriously touched with life,
and exhibit the ten