GOLD BUTTONS

Retrospection of the instruction given to members of the two military courses at the University this year presents two outstanding points. The observer at once perceives that the instructors are divided into two groups: first, the officers detailed by the French and American Governments to take charge of the training; second, the professors and instructors of the University who have volunteered their services in conducting the classes. Some of the latter we have seen appear with their beautifully shined puttees wrong end to. Others have walked the streets with eight inches of shoe-string dragging behind. Still others have come to parade with their R. O. T. C. insignia at a slant of forty-five degrees. They have taken delight in the clandestine publication of orders. They have demanded attendance at lectures announced three hours before their occurrence. They have even advocated battalion parade in columns of squads.

They have studied the I.D.R. until they know the school of the regiment backwards, they can mount and relieve the guard, and single-handed, can pursue the husky Hun back to the gates of Berlin--on paper; all this without a waver or differing in one detail from established precedent.

All these the perhaps too critical eye of the student has noticed and of them he has made his sport. But we have been a little too inclined to assume the censorious attitude. We have forgotten that these professors volunteered entirely of their own accord to take, in addition to their regular duties of instruction, such work as the military department might give them. They have made possible courses which otherwise would have required a new force of instructors. They have spent many hours and no little effort, and imposed upon themselves tiresome and unpleasant tasks. They have devoted evenings to the drudgery of correcting section papers. In everything, from acting as majors to preparing roast-beef and jelly sandwiches, they have been unsparing of their labors.

For their services they have received little acknowledgement; yet they deserve due credit for the time they have given and for the effort they have expended, voluntarily, in the military department. In recognition of the work they have done, we salute the professor-officer.