Republican farmer., 1919-05-30
MEN IN ARMY
 ABROAD GIVEN REA LEDUCATl0N

Paris, May 23.---Correspondence Of The Associated Press. )---Uncle Sam is
 now a fully certified schoolnaster
 with about 200. 900 khaki-claj1 pupils
 This is the result of the establishment
 of the Educational Corps of the, United States army to provide training for vacations and academic instruction for young men in the army.
 The Educational Corps is under the direction of Brigadicr General Robert I. Rees, who nliiitarized the American colleges last fall. Under him is an cx ecutive commission of three eGuca- tors, Dr. Frank E. SpauIding, Super intendent of Schools in Cleveland:
 Dr. John F,rskine, Professor of English at Columbia; and pr. Kenyon l.. But terfield. President of the Massachu- setts Agricultural College. In all about 7,50O instructors, including
 number of men of high standing in American education, are teaching the
 American soldiers the way to pro- gress. Everything from q, b, to uni versity subjects and from stenCgraphy
 to engineering is included within the
 curriculum of this great and unique college.
 The army schools were in fttli op eration by January, equipped with s1,500 worth Of books especially CT dered from America and provided in part by the American Library Asso- ciation. But there has been short age of books and often one book has had to serve for a whole class. Many hundreds of. army schools have been established throughout ! France wherever there are enough American soldiers to warrant. Gen eral Pershing's order required a post school in every place where 300 or more men were stationed and as the schools had to be opened at once all sorts of queer places. from cafes to monasteries, were used as school rooms, dntil regular quarters could be | provided The soldiers are studying l in barns, stable lofts, aerodromes, | army barracks and in one case in convent. Meantime the army is en- l deavoring to provide quarters and sufficient books for its 200. coo students In cities like Coblenz. the city school | buildings are used without interfering 1 with the regular school life of the l children.
 These post schools may be termed
 the primary schools of the army ed | ucational system, though this is in exact as in many of these schools more advanced education is being given to officers and men who are
 unable to leave their posts and attend the divisional schools or the univer- | sity- The men attend these post
 schools after their regular days work | Then every division has high school centrally located with better
 accommodations. Some 30,O0O men are attending such high schools. Then comes the big army university at Beaune which will accommodate many thousands of students. Besides there are about 5000 officers and men at i tending French universities who have hospitably thrown open their doors to their American friends and 2.00O more | are in English universities. These university students all men who have had at least the equivalent of | tUo years in college.
 i Obviously few men can be detached from their own units to attend these universities but the post school does i lot interfere with military work but i is availab ble to every soldier and thus has important place in the educa- i tional system.
 l The breadth of the work in the post schools being done is astounding. Men ! who cannot read or write are to be | found studying in the same room with college graduates who are working for i advanced degrees. There is a chance | for everybody. The list of subjects ] taught would fill a book but here are | a few to illustrate: Algebra, calculus i eometry, trigonometry, economies literature, French, German, Italian, Spanish, agriculture. autobomile re- pairing. baking. barbering. bookkeep- l ng. arithmetic, business English, bus 1 mess forms. carpentry. cobbling, com
 mercial law, cooking, horseShoeing surveying. mechanical drawing, road 1 construction, salesmanship, stenog- rappy, typewriting, tailoring, teleg- raphy, and telephone repair.
 1 For illiterates schooling is compul- sory, for the great bulk. of the army | it is elective.