some dozen lads from thirteen to sixteen years of age got to work at it. Sometimes, as the days passed, there might be as many as twenty on the job-especially when it came to putting the shingles on the seventy-foot roof. All the time the men of the camp, the directors, aided no more than was absolutely necessary, merely giving a suggestion now and then, or a hint or two, and leaving it to the boys to do what was proper. Absurd? Not at all. Boys have an extraordinary capacity for such things, both for design and execution. True enough, this latent facility wanes after a while, so that lads of military age who have never had it developed acquire very slowly an ability to construct, and never to the extent they would have if their latent capacity had been developed in time. But it has been found in this experimental military camp that the older lads who have had this experience when youngsters not only retain it, but add to it the adult's appreciation for accuracy and detail. Yet most manual training teachers make the fatal mistake of giving the exercises for accuracy and detail first, and, as this comes at a time when it is not naturally appreciated, the manual work given in many schools fails to be of its best value.

That mess hall, by the way, was finished in six days, even to the concrete under the kitchen ranges.

At 2:30 in the afternoon our boys found themselves regularly called out for baseball-one of the finest games America has produced for all-round training in physical and mental co-ordination. Frank did not want to play, but he had to, just the same, and before the season was over had to acknowledge that he actually liked it.

At four all hands went swimming, and those who did not know how to swim soon learned.

At 4:45 there was a cheery sounding of bugles, and it was now that both Arthur and Frank were to receive the first real shock of their lives. This was the signal for military drill. It is the feeling in this camp that we Americans have greatly exaggerated the value of this exercise, particularly as regards the younger generation, but it does have its uses, mostly disciplinary. A little of it, however, goes a very long way with boys, so the amount of time given to formal work of this kind was very small, but when that time actually arrived it was no joke. For the forty-five or sixty minutes the place to all intents and purposes became an army post.

An officer with years of service in the Regular Army took charge, and at the command, "Fall in!" his sharp, blunt methods brought a prompt order from the confusion; but no sooner had the company been lined up and taught the meaning of "Right dress," than a small passing shower arrived. Imme diately Arthur and Frank remembered that the only proper place in the rain is under a roof. So they calmly broke ranks and started for one. Whereat the drill-master, with all the ready fluency and pointed expression of a regular first sergeant, spoke his mind. When he had finished, those two were back in the ranks, scared half to death, Arthur red with shame and Frank white with rage. And yet before the end of the summer Arthur, who at first hated his drill, became a sergeant and carried a sword; just as Frank, who was angry when he had to manufacture a cot, and who gained execrable marks for "manual training" at school, ended the summer by winning the medal for doing the best piece of camp construction.

As for that drill, let it be said that, even with the very short time given it, by the end of the first month the boys marched and drilled very well-in fact, quite as well as it need ever be expected or desired of lads under military age. Of course the nearer they get to eighteen the more they can have of it and similar purely military matters, so that when they actually enter the army this elementary knowledge has become almost second nature.

Well, we could never take up in detail all the experiments of a summer-experiments planned to develop resourcefulness, self-reliance, and initiative, largely through various kinds of constructive hand-work, through a multitude of competitions, through sports and games, and so on. So there were competitive athletic performances and competitions in making natural history collections-trees, fossils, insects, and so on-all making for close and careful observation of things around them. Then there were sketch club competition, first aid, fishing, and general all-round competitions; and through competition, which is always a boy's weak point, matters were accomplished that not only sur

prised many parents but which gave the competitors abilities and a knowledge of their own powers that they never imagined they possessed.

Near the end of the season, when all were as hard as nails, they were taken to the mainland and sent in small parties scattering through the northeastern Adirondacks. Boys of thirteen might make ninety miles in their week, or more. Boys of fifteen have made one hundred and forty miles, setting their own pace and carrying their own baggage, sleeping under the skies when the weather was propitious or in haymows when rain threatened. They prepared their own simple meals, followed their own maps, studying the country through which they passed, and keeping careful journals for yet another competition. When lads return from such a hike, their muscles have an amazing hardness and their postures are improved to a marked degree. Yet it must be carefully done. Each party must contain boys of even strength, and never must a day's hike go beyond the strength of the weakest member of a party.

And, finally, the army, brown and strong, were packed into Pullmans and shipped back home, very different in more ways than one than when they arrived. Arthur increased his physical score to 102, and won the improvement medal. Bob went up to 112, and was not far behind in the "best physique" contest. Frank, as we have said, made the best piece of camp construction, won a medal, had the effect of his years of spoiling knocked clear out of him, and went home possessing the beginnings of a confident, self-respecting manhood. And Arthur, again, had come to realize that there are other things in the world even more important than the possession of wealth. John? John, of course, won the geological medal and the medal for semaphore signaling. And here we may have it, then-a workable system for the training of lads under military age. First, not formal drill. That is neither important nor really essential. First, individual physical training and, when necessary, medical attention. Along with this can go the group games and exercises which to too many of us make all there is to physical training. Without the individual work it is about thirty per cent efficient.

Next, not formal drill; next, hand construction, work of a broad and rough kind-not the making of miter-joints and dovetails and pretty flower boxes, so beloved by teachers of manual training. This detailed work comes all right later on. But the right kind provides a marvelous means for developing the finest kind of valuable characteristics. And it was William James who said that for the best ethical training hand-work should predominate over book-work till the sixteenth year.

Next, not formal drill, but training for citizenship. This cannot be done at a camp except indirectly. It is a matter for the schools, and the one thing they seem most to avoid. They teach some American history, very badly biased, and have the children learn the Declaration of Independence by heart, and then expect them to know all the responsibilities and privileges of real citizenship, to realize thoroughly how real liberty is absolutely dependent on co-operation and upon intelligent law and order, and that being twenty-one years old and being neither in jail nor an asylum does not necessarily make one an intelligent voter, capable of deciding the destinies of a people.

This last is an immensely important matter, though we are just coming to realize it, when our neglect of it in the past now rises up as a very present menace. Before we have good soldiers we must have good citizens, so that it is fair to say that training for citizenship might well precede in importance any amount of right-shouldering of arms or marchings right front into line, or the like.

And it is possible that even first aid and hygiene and sanitation are subjects more important than formal drill.

Finally comes the formal drill itself, very valuable as a disciplinary measure, not important for younger boys, but increasingly important as they approach military age.

The purpose of the experimental camp to which our four boys were sent is to develop the principles upon which a practical system for under-military-age training can be based, and it is up to the schools to develop what the camp cannot do-arrange a procedure for educating children to be good citizens. Such a system, tried and made perfect, might come to mean not only something vitally important to Young America but possibly even Future America.