Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 290, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1918 — BOYS FIRST TO WEAR ARMOR [ARTICLE]

BOYS FIRST TO WEAR ARMOR

Veteran Soldiers of Rome Scorned the Idea of Such Protection From Danger as It Gave. While these metal clothes, uncomfortable, hot and heavy though they were; have been a necessary style of wearing apparel ever since the forgotten ages when men began to quarrel and to strive, writes E. S. Brooks, tn “Stories of the Middle Ages," it was not until a comparatively recent date, that warriors rode to battle wholly incased Jn armor. The Ass/rlans and Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans of the earlier days, were satisfied with such partial protection as would shield . . . part of their bodies. . . . The stout old Roman legionaries, bronzed and scarrgd with exposure and fightiqg, laughed rather contemptuously at the fresh levies which, when sent to the field, wished to shield their bodies as much as possible. Indeed, the first use of the word armor, as we understand it, is found in the works of a military writer of the latter part of the fourth century A. D.. one T. Vegetius Renatus, who refers to armor as a defense'worn only

by the young troops; so. you see thnt, after all; the boys were the first -to Incase themselves In armor and were the earliest of the knights.