AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN FRANCE FULFILLED PURPOSE

Professor Julian L. Coolidge '95, in speaking of the work of the American University of American soldiers established in France, expressed himself as feeling that this scheme of the government to fill in the gaps made in the education of so many young Americans because of the exigencies of the war, fulfilled its purpose, judging from the satisfaction expressed by the students themselves. "Certainly the attempt to make students out of soldiers was more successful than the attempt to make soldiers out of students as exemplified by the S. A. T. C.", he said. Professor Coolidge served in France as liasion officer attached to the France as liasion officer attached to the French headquarters, from the summer of 1917 until his recent return to this country. In addition to these duties he was appointed to act as military commandant of the American University in France, which was organized last February by the Educational Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces.

"Over 16,000 attended the different branches of the American University in France," he said. "At Beaune, where the instruction was given by American college men in the army, there were seven thousand men; in the French universities, where higher education was afforded, there were also seven thousand; finally in the English universities two thousand more were provided for.

"At Paris, where eighteen hundred enlisted men and officers attended either the University of Paris or vocational schools in the city, they were not quartered in army barracks, although the men lived under military discipline. They lived in hotels, in boarding houses and in French homes. An interesting outcome of this boarding of men in private families was that before the school closed in July, twenty student-soldiers had applied for permission to marry."