Trench and camp. [volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1917-1919, 1918-09-25
SECRETARY BAKER
SPEAKS ON PERSONNEL
WORK IN The ARMY
Addresses Eighth School For
Personnel Adjutants at Camp
Meigs, Washington, D. G.
Emphasizes Value of Such
Work,

Work,
Secretary Of War Newton D. Baker
I addressed the eighth school for personnel
adjutants at Camp Meigs, Washington
| d. G.. stating hist approval Of the per-
sonnet work In the army. Mr.. Baker en-
! phasz ed the value Of such work and
| forecasted extensive development Of an
agency for selecting the right man for
| the right place He was introduced by
| DR. Walter Din Scott. director Of the
1 committee on classification Of personnel
| in the army and spoke as follows:
| II is very great pleasure to me TO be
! here this morning and meet this class
| You represent a novel contribution to the
| making Of armies. War is essentially
| revolutionary to people whose arts have
! been those Of peace and whose occupa =
| lions have been for the most part those
! Of industry. The revolution Is wide
/ spread. fundamental and thorough going,
and can perhaps illustrate to you more
! fully what [ mean by telling you Of an
| incident which recently took place in
France than by any further attempt to
define the thought. This incident deals
with the change in the attitude Of men,
/ Of young men, toward life as brought
about by their reoccipation in war for
a sacred cause Mr. Fosdck told me that
| the Y. M G. A. director had assembled
/ a group Of 500 or 500 meh, and was hav-
| ing one Of those composite evenings
| which are characteristic Of the social and
Isemi-religious activities of the y. NJ. q.
| A., when II suddenly occurred to him that
| he did not know what was in the minds
| of those soldiers RI he had been in the
! United States he would have known the
! virtues to which young men aspred, and
! the vices against which they struggled,
/ but here was new group. II was no
! longer the civilian company that he used
| to see In the Y M. G. A. halls OF the
| United States And 50 for his own guild !,
ance and information he passed around
| papers and pencils and asked each man
| In that company to write and pass up to
| him what he regarded as the three car
dinal SINS. When the vote WAS taken
! 1t was unanimous on No. l. nearly unani-
nous on No 2; very largely preponderat-
| Ing on No. 3, and those sins were as fol-
| lows
| The sin upon which they were unani-
nous as No l was COWARDICE.
The sin upon which they were sub
| stantally unanimous No. 2 was Sell
| ISHNESS-not sharing with your part
ner In the trench. not taking your share
| Of the hardships OF the military life
majority for the third choice was BIG
! HEAD. Now that is a complete revo-
luton in the mind Of youth toward life
Those 500 young men, If they had been
in the United States. and there had been
no war, would have been engaged In
getting ahead, eacf for himself, probably
making money, praparing for or making
a career. ambition. nj struggling The
Q "
essentially the most to be avoided would
doubtless have been the evils Of intemp-
erance, the social evils, lying, stealing
and that sort of thing; but here, caught
up in the clouds, az il were, by this
great concentrated enterprise which re-
quires a new set Of virtues an unused
set of talents. these men are no longer
thinking about the things which in pri-
vate and civll life are the things which
they have to struggle about but they are
ambitious now to be brave. they are
struggling now to be generous and un-
selfish, and they are filled with fine
desire TO be lowly
l think that Illustrates the point / want
to make, II illustrates it in this way:
the army Is a new calling to nearly
everybody in it, The men are no longer
assorted and assessed now by their
ability to do the things which in pri-
waite life make success A man might
have the ability to accumulate money
which, say Mr. Rockefeller had and
might be totally devoid of the talents re-
CURED OF soldier-l don't know whether
Mr.. Rockefeller has any military talents
or not, there is nothing personal in the
tllustration--but he might have Mr..
RociIefeller's ability to organize bust
ness and industry and accumulate
wealth, and yet not have the sort OF
talent which in this emergency would en-
title him to commission,
And in making this assortment of per-
sons we are under the unhappy nhibi-
ton OF taking any mans judgment Of
himself There are very few OF us, even
In normal circumstances where we have
devoted lot of time 10 the study of
talents, who know what we are fitted
for. We begin in our childhood to drift
in q sort Of way suspect many Of
you could reproduce my experience in
that. When l was very little l was
sure | was going TO he preacher. be-
cause my mother told me So A little
later | was sure was to be a doctor
because my father was doctor. When
L began to stand a little on my own feet
about the business | had an ambition
to be a college professor. and 1t took me
a long time to adjust myself to the fact
that / did not know enough to be a col
lege professor. And finally | studied law
and practced law, as the result. per-
haps, of a continuous practice of self
appraisement and self -assessment and
seeking to find the place in life where
such talents or capacities as thought
had in any degree might be of a maxi
mum usefulness. And Vet 1t is true with
me as with most other people there al
ways remains doubt as to whether the
career chosen and brought about by them
is the Wisest career aft5r all, and we con-
stantly see in life men who have achieved
success in the professions who regard
their professional occupation as a very
sorry excuse for the things which they
could have done best For instance, Pro-
feSsor sylvester was professor of mathe-
MATES at Johns Hopkins University for
two or three years, having been brought
Professor Sylvester was admittedly the
greatest living mathematician. Ii was
so well recognized by all that he knew II
himself and admitted II frankly He said,
for instance, that he sometimes thought
he was the greatest living mathematician
and then sometimes he thought Profess
sor Cayfey was; he knew it was betwee
the two of them: that most people
thought he was, and he was rather in
clined to agree With them. Now that
was the opinion OF the world. Professor
Sylvester was n man Of so great mathe-
NAUTICAL talent that everybody who came
in contact with him was astounded at
his wonderful ability; they regarded the
workings of his mind on mathematical
problems almost as flashes of lightning
1t is said he would go up to the board to
i work out a problem, when all OF a sud
den he would seem 10 so off onto some
thing else, some other calculation en-
tirely apart from the one before him for
solution he would apparently go off in
a trance. He would seem almost trans
| fixed, so intense was his application to
something else. suddenly he would
write down some figures, and ultimately
he would come out with demonstration
I OF a solution that mathematical had
been working for and looking for for
hundreds OF years. He would become
much excited, and cry out: There 1t is
| 1t would seem to come 10 him out of the
Clouds he was that sort of an inspired
| genius, And yet his own statement on
/ that subject was that: Il think l am the
greatest mathematician I am sure it is
! between Cayley and myself; but l know