velop that high quality which we call character. It finds expression in the academy's motto: "Duty, honor, country." Briefly summed up, it means honorable conduct in all actions and in all dealings with one's fellows. The basis of it is loyalty -loyalty to those fundamental moral principles upon which all right conduct is based, loyalty to the profession of which one is a member, loyalty to superiors, and loyalty to the Nation in whose service we are all enlisted. There is no real success without this quality. The man who is disloyal to his profession, to his superior, or to his country is disloyal to himself and to all that is best in him. He is his own worst enemy, for he undermines his own character, and thus deprives his efforts of that incentive which is the most powerful of all factors. We all have a right to our own views and opinions, and in most cases which arise we have opportunity to express them. When the decision is against us, instead of shirking, giving lukewarm support, or attempting to show that our opinions are the correct ones, loyalty demands that we give the best that is in us toward the accomplishment of the end desired by those in authority. If your four years' training here has not fixed this truth firmly and ineradicably in your minds, it has failed lamentably in its purpose.

The system of training through which you have passed is designed and arranged to require of you and to impress upon you the necessity of mastering each day's allotted work with the object of developing in you those powers of concentration and application which are necessary for successful accomplishment. You could not have succeeded here had you at any time during your course put off till to-morrow those tasks which were prescribed for to-day; the same rule must continue to be your standard if you hope to succeed in measuring up to the future duties that will devolve upon you. The course of study and instruction, however, is not such as to warrant the sanguine and self-confident graduate in believing, when he reccives his diploma, that he is the possessor of all knowledge. On the contrary, he has the bare beginnings of knowledge; the foundations of a structure yet to be raised. The clearer this revelation is made to him, the sooner he perceives that he has merely been taught how to acquire and use knowledge, and

that successful accomplishment can be attained only by continuing the methods of constant, earnest effort, the better will be his chances of success.

As already stated, in the final test of actual experience it is upon the man himself that success depends. No system of training will carry an incapable or an unfaithful man to success. The world to-day is above all else a practical world, and it demands results. What it is looking for is men who can and will do things. It is recorded of Lord Kitchener that, when during the South African campaign a subordinate officer reported to him a failure to obey orders and gave reasons therefor, he said to him: "Your reasons for not doing it are the best I ever heard; now go and do it." That is what the world demands to-day-not men who are fearful of an undertaking, who advance reasons for not doing it or express doubts about its accomplishment, but men who have the courage of their convictions and will find ways to carry it through successfully.

Your duties will bring you more or less in touch with civil life, in contradistinction to the military, and some of you will spend the larger portion of your active careers among civilians. Isolated as you have been during the four most impressionable years of your life, and deprived in a large measure of contact with the outer world, you have lacked opportunity for learning its ways and the ways in which men in general think and act. In this respect you are not the equals of the graduates of our universities and technical schools, who acquire such knowledge through mental friction that results from contact between men pursuing different courses of study, and by actual touch with the world during term time and in the long vacation periods. This seclusion is, of course, a necessary feature of the military training and must be maintained. I do not speak of it with any idea of change or modification, but for the purpose of calling attention to certain effects of it which should be taken into account by our graduates as they enter upon the duties of life. While there are men in civil life with ideals as high as those held constantly before you here, you will find instances where men gained their ends, without apparent loss of prestige or position, in ways and by means which measured by your standards would

be considered neither straightforward nor honorable. In such surroundings one's viewpoint may become distorted, and it behooves us so to live that no discredit will be reflected on the academy or the Army. The outside world knows our service and our alma mater by the impressions we make upon it, and we owe it to them, to the Nation which educated us, to live up to the ideals of honor, self-abnegation, sacrifice, and devotion to duty which this institution has endeavored to instill in you. The most important duty that will devolve upon you is the control, direction, and command of men. To successfully accomplish any task, it is necessary not only that you should give to it the best that is in you, but that you should obtain for it the best there is in those who are under your guidance. To do this, you must have confidence in the undertaking and confidence in your ability to accomplish it in order to inspire that same feeling in them. You must have not only accurate knowledge of their capabilities, but a just appreciation and a full recognition of their needs and rights as fellow men. In other words, be considerate, just, and fair with them in all dealings, treating them as fellow members of the great Brotherhood of Humanity. A discontented force is seldom loyal, and if its discontent is based upon a sense of unjust treatment, it is never efficient. Faith in the ability of a leader is of slight service unless it be united with faith in his justice. When these two are combined, then and then only is developed that irresistible and irrepressible spirit of enthusiasm, that personal interest and pride in the task, which inspires every member of the force, be it military or civil, to give when need arises the last ounce of his strength and the last drop of his blood to the winning of a victory in the honor of which he will share.

We are expected to perform fully and to the best of our ability whatever duty is assigned to us; for this have we been trained and educated, and our aim and purpose should be its successful accomplishment without any other considerations. This, however, is not always the case, for you will find some who are so impressed with what they call their reputations or who are so desirous of advancing their individual interests that the singleness of purpose no longer controls. The dread of detracting from the one or injuring the other impairs their use

fulness and efficiency, for they fear to accept the consequences of responsibility and of decisive action, which are so essential to successful accomplishment.

We are inclined to expect praise or reward for doing nothing more than our duty when, as a matter of fact, we are entitled to neither, since we have done only that which is required of us. It calls to mind an instance which came under my observation in the days before efficiency reports were in vogue. A young officer about to be relieved from duty at a certain station was told by his superior that the latter intended to give him a letter commendatory of his services. The youngster inquired if he had done anything more than his duty, and on learning that while he had not he had performed that duty well, replied that he failed to see why there should be any commendation for doing that for which he had been educated by the Government and retained in its service. This is an example of the spirit that we should strive to acquire-to be content with the consciousness of duty well done; therein lies the reward which gives the greater gratification and which is secure. With such a spirit the enthusiasm and the hopefulness which contribute so largely in securing successful results will continue with us; without them disappointment and discouragement are too apt to follow. The plaudits of our fellows may be flattering to our vanity, but they are not lasting; by the next turn of the wheel they may be changed into abuse and condemnation.

It all amounts to this: Whatever your hands find to do, that do with all the might that is in you. That is the lesson of all experience. Face every task with a determination to conquer its difficulties and never to let them conquer you. No task is too small to be done well. For the man who is worthy, who is fit to perform the deeds of the world, even the greatest, sooner or later the opportunity to do them will come. He can abide his time, can rest-"safe in himself as in a fate."

ARTHUR GRIFFITH

THE IRISH FREE STATE

Arthur Griffith was born in Dublin in 1872. In 1905 he first propounded the Sinn Fein policy of national freedom without bloodshed. Although Sinn Fein failed in a short time, Mr. Griffith continued his work for the Irish cause. After the rebellion of 1916 and the defeat of the "physical force" party, Sinn Fein power increased. Mr. Griffith was several times imprisoned, but after his final release in 1921 it was his determination and fearlessness which carried the delegates through the peace negotiations and the fight for the treaty. The stormy debate over the treaty lasted for many days in the Dail and it was on January 7, 1922, before the vote which approved the treaty by a majority of seven, that Mr. Griffith wound up the debate with the following speech. He succeeded Mr. de Valera as president of the Dail Eireann and died in August, 1922.

I WILL not accept the invitation of the Minister of Defense to dishonor my signature and thereby become immortalized in Irish history. I have signed the Treaty, and the man or the nation that dishonors its signature is dishonored forever. No man can dishonor his signature without dishonoring the nation. [Hear, Hear.] The suggestion was made that I was going to be immortalized if I dishonored my signature, and it was said that I was a weak man and that my friend Michael Collins had had "backdoor conversations" with the English Prime Minister and that he had given something away. It was asked why we went to see Mr. Lloyd George without the whole of the plenipotentiaries being together. We went for the same reason that President de Valera met Mr. Lloyd George when he went to Downing Street-because things could be better discussed by two or three men than by eighteen.

The Minister of Defense has spoken of me as saying that Michael Collins is the man who won the war. I did say that,