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KEEPING THE
What
"The Best Gift She Can Make to Her Country Is to Show a Gen
uine Interest in Some Soldier—"
W H E T H E R a man is a
"went" or a "sent",
whether he volunteers or
is drafted, upon his age
depends his military efficiency.
A division of boys will take a
position that the same number of older
men would shrink from attacking. An
army without youth contains no flower,
and unless it is one big bouquet it is
useless for a really aggressive campaign.
The bulk of a successful army is made
up of men under thirty.
But youth, despite its ardor, is at times
easily depressed. Its confidence may be
shaken ; its faith in itself dissolved. Yet
upon the mental state—the morale—of
the individual members of his forces depends
largely a general's success. Next
to keeping the men physically fit the
great task is to keep them mentally satisfied.
If that can be accomplished the
campaign is half won.
How then can this morale—the enthusiasm
of youth, the love of doing, the
fighting spirit—be maintained in the per-
806
son of our young soldier, whom Can we may
call John Robinson, aged twenty-three,
taken abruptly from his desk as assistant
sales manager of the West End Real
Estate Company, for service against the
enemy Various ways may
themselves to the thoughtful.
J. M. Barrie, the Scottish
dramatist, answers the question
in his play "The Old
Lady Shows Her Medals".
Says a brawny Highlander
in the course of the action:
"Chiffon ! That's what the
men in the trenches are thinking of—
not the Kaiser, nor bombs, nor keeping
the home fires burning, nor Tipperary—
just chiffon." This statement is an epitome
of woman's never-relaxing hold
over man, whether the man be soldier or
civilian.
Be camp conditions what they may, in
the last analysis John Robinson's success
as a soldier depends more than anything
else upon the girl back home.
Every man in his heart is a medieval
knight. His lady's token upon his sleeve
—figuratively speaking—gives him a
higher courage and confidence when he
plunges through the smoky lines of
battle. Every girl, if she does not know
this, ought to know it. She should fully
realize that her whole duty in this great
war is not done when she assembles, as
one of a bevy, to kiss some soldier goodbye,
and to cut a button from his
coat as a souvenir to show her less fortunate
girl friends. Urging the youthful
susceptibles to enlist, coercing reluctant
tightwads to invest in liberty bonds, smil-