The weekly Alaska citizen., 1918-03-18
SAMMIES SEEK
 TO ENLIST IN
 FRENCH CORPS

5000 fellow-pupils by reason of their three fellow-pupils by reason of their work. twenty-three young Americans are fast completing their courses in the French artillery school here.
 All of them are graduates or have been students at American college s or universities; all of them hay @ seen service with such organizations as the American Ambulance or the Red Cross. More than one of them wear the French war cross to attest lo what they have done in the war Yet all of them have in way re- nounced their own country and gone over to the service of France for the duration of the war because they have not quite been able to pass the strenuous American physical fit ness tests, and yet are so anxious to do something for "the cause" that they could not remain idle.
 With the exception of two or three, all have had to enlist in the famous Foreign Leigon in order to get into the school at all, as a government regulation put a stop to the original ease with which Americans could join the French artillery school.
 The eagerness to serve which has induced the twenty-three Americans who range from IS to 23 in age to enter French service is reflected in the work they are doing, which. according to the commander of the school, is generally of very high order in spite of the difficulties of absorbing instruction in the French language.
 The youngsters were romping in from their morning work one day this week when an Associated Press correspondent found them. Eventual ly they picked out Whitney Warren, Jr., of New York, to set down the facts. which he did.
 There are approximately three thousand pupils at the school" he began. 'The course lasts three months and half, and is not dis similar in many ways to colle gc course at home, especially in that graduation is on the point system.
 The competition is keen as can be to get as high number as pos sible, however, for at graduation time those who stand highest have first choice of the regiments that need future officers.
 The course that leads to these points consist of theoretical class room instruction-th and all the other studies that an artillery officer must know--and practical in struction with the guns themselves, particularly with the 85's and the 1858. We Americans, most of whom did not know French before we came here to France since 1914, have to put in long extra hours on the Ian guage so as to be able to understand what goes on in the classroom the better.
 "The outdoor work with the guns is supplanted by great amount of athletic work-games that bring all the muscles into play, horseback rides during which we have, without stirrups, to extend our arms horizon tally and guide with our knees and legs, long country hikes. and so on.
 "The French are splendid to us. The instructors on the one hand make every effort to see that we clearly understand everything that is said in the lecture. The French pu- pills on the other hand are all good fellows and we're all great big famity together"
 The young men live in huge barracks in the neighborhood of the famous chateau. Each week end they are given leave to Paris. Des- pite their signing up with the Legion of Honor they are as keenly and pa triotically American as anyone in the American army. They are disap- pointed that the American physical regulations are so unusually severe and feel confident that the time is coming when the United States will let down the bars a little. Their service for France has made them enthusiastically pro-French The list of American students shows the wide ly scattered constituency of the Am erican contingency at the school Here it is, with only a few of the men missing:
 Harold l.. Scott, Granville, Ohio; William M. Barber, Toledo, O.; Cole man T. Clark, Westfield, N. J.; Whit ney Warren, Jr., New York; Stanton Garfield. Washington, D. C.; Philip A. Rogers, Binghamton, N. Y.; Thom- as F. McAllister, Grand Rapids, Mich. William c. Towle, New York City; c. Law Watkins. Rye, N. Y.; John Clark, Cornelius Winant, Townsend Martin. Winthrop Cortelyou and Red mond Moreland. all from New York; Gerard Genew, Boston; William MnrolonA Dittchuru. Edword Dh;l