Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1891 — MAKE THE BEST SOLDIERS. [ARTICLE]

MAKE THE BEST SOLDIERS.

A Recruiting. Officer Says Fanner IJoyi Are What Cade Ram Want*. Ever since public and official attontioq has been directed to the subjectof the frequency of desertions from the army, a year or so ago, there has been a determined effort on the part of the authorities o improve the quality of the material with which the service was recruited, in belief that in this lay the remedy for the great evil. Extra efforts were male tasecure young men who sought the army as a profession rather than as a haven oi refuge, and to this end the efforts of recruiting officers have been systematically turned away from cities toward the country. The new system has just begun to show its fruits and it is most justifying to the expectations of those who inaugurated it. An officer of the Adjutant-general’s department who has charge of this work remarked recently: “Wo are having very good lock with our later recruits, and 1 think the army to-day is composed of a better class of men than ever before. We have abandoned the city field almostent tirely and gone to the country, where we are apt to get more vigorous young men, free from the contamination of the rough life of town, eager to do well and to weai chevrons. Such men make good soldiers, far better than the old hardened toughs who come outof-tho slums to enlist as a last resort or as a means of drowning their identities.’’