when the walls are built and the ceiling has shut in the space. You have seen the sky on a moor or on the prairie so vast that it tires the eyes and baffles the imagination, but you have looked down Broadway and seen it framed by the gigantic buildings on each side stretching out as it seems in front of you toward eternity, and you have realized for the first time how vast it is. So life. confined by sound education takes on wider proportions.

The message of the European war and the suffering of our countrymen have taught us this, and it is a lesson which I believe we shall all incorporate in our school tradition: That by the small incident and by attention to small details, by accurate work, by the passion and love for minutiae, we can enlarge the horizon of those we have to teach, so that old quarrels between nations that should be friendly vanish as they are seen in their true proportion, and a new people will be built up that will lay a firm hold upon true principles of Government and thereby, and only thereby, secure the healthy progress of mankind.

REGENT ELKUS: We are exceedingly fortunate in the selection of the representative of the Kingdom of Italy, for Italy has sent to us a most charming representative, one who speaks with authority upon the subject under discussion. The Ambassador of Italy to the United States sends this authority to the President of the University: "I am very pleased with your invitation to Miss Bernardy, who is fully competent to give all the information about the Italian schools. We thank you for the honor given a very gifted and learned representative of Italy."

It is therefore with very great pleasure that I have the honor of presenting to you as the representative of Italy, who will speak of the schools and the work of the schools during war in that country, Mlle. Amy A. Bernardy, who represents the Italian Embassy and who is also a representative of the general secretary of civil affairs of the Italian war zone. It is with exceeding pleasure that I have the honor to present to you Miss Bernardy.

ADDRESS OF MISS AMY A. BERNARDY

Representative of Italian Embassy and of General Secretary for
Civil Affairs of Italian War Zone

It would certainly cheer our soldiers on the Isonzo front if they could hear the welcome that you give to Italy, for I can understand that it is not given to me, but to Italy, who is fighting at present, fighting hard, under desperate conditions as far as supplies are concerned, but with wonderful possibilities, as far as the future of the allies is concerned.

I do not know why I should have been selected for this signal honor (and by the way the letter of my Ambassador is a pleasant surprise to me) except that, perhaps, as I have been under fire at Gorizia and on the Isonzo it was supposed that I could stand the fire of an audience. And one who has traveled under the searchlights from the San Marco and the Sabotino Heights may well face the glare of publicity. But perhaps I was chosen just because I was a woman and I do not make this an argument for suffrage. Possibly women may be allowed to speak when men fight. But most probably I was chosen because I have lately had a great deal of experience with children. That is evidently my special connection with this occasion. I have eighty-six babies of my own, war babies, children of men who have gone to the front. I never realized the absurdity of calling them "my babies" until it was pointed out to me, but I do not mind, since I have adopted them for the war time. I speak of them because, perhaps, understanding their situation as individuals may be the easiest way for you to understand one phase of what Italy has done for education during this war.

As soon as we entered the war, not being an enormously rich country or in condition to draw upon extensive supplies, and not having made provision for war which caught us, as well as our allies, unprepared, we realized that the nominal salary given to our soldiers could not keep the men or the families out of worry and need. Therefore, all the citizens who were able to do so got together, and somehow the idea, like Topsy, just naturally grew, of having "baby nests." We called them "baby nests

because the Teutonic kindergarten had forever barred its admittance to the Italian world. Somehow, the fluttering and chirping of the little things seemed to suggest the words; and we hope their nests will be a good memory to these children of the soldiers.

In Italy, practically in every city and in every village where possible, a committee was appointed by the mayor or other authority, or even self-appointed and later ratified and sanctioned by the authorities. I for one happened to have a country house in Tukany, near a village which, of course, is full of the children; and that is how I came to start and run that particular “nest." We take the babies in the morning, keep them for the day in house and playground, give them lunch and send them back in the evening. The fathers think that is the best plan. The mothers enjoy having them in the evening, but at the same time they are released for work in the factories during the day; and the result on the whole is very satisfactory both for the children and for the peace of mind of the mothers. I can hardly tell you how appreciated and useful the institution of “baby nests" has been throughout the country and how important their influence on the individual soldier and father; how much good, in short, they have done all around, especially in bringing home to the men the knowledge and the satisfaction that the nation stands as one behind them. We have adopted their children as our children and will return them to them at the end of the war, better little men and little women, we are sure. And mind you, it is not the children who are in our debt. All of us who have lived with the cheerful little tots consider we are in their debt, as well as in the debt of the fathers.

The second phase of war work in the schools brings us immediately to the grown-ups. The schools for the maimed and disabled soldiers have proved a great asset in the general way in which the men look at the casualties of the war. The royal palaces, both of the reigning queen and of the queen mother, have been turned into hospitals for the soldiers of the capital and of the vicinity, and it is very interesting to any one accustomed to ascending the Quirinal stairs on the evening of great balls, to

ascend them now in company with Roman crowds that go to visit their men in the wards. The men have particularly fine parties of their own in the Quirinal gardens, famed for their beauty and the exclusive garden parties given there in honor of royalty in former times, so that it is very interesting now to see the people take possession of those gardens so freely and joyfully. Even from this example you can understand how and why Italy has been called a crowned republic; and let me add that if by any chance Italy were to turn into a republic tomorrow, probably her first president would be her king.

The naturally artistic temperament of the Latin character helps the men a great deal. Men who have to resort to an artificial hand or hook to help the other hand, learn all sorts of little tricks of trade, and industrial art is a favorite with them. During convalescence they do knitting for their brother soldiers, with the help of adequate devices. Afterwards many turn to draughtmanship, with the right or the left hand. Others turn to the various industrial arts, for which Italy has long been famous.

I remember particularly in the royal palace when a soldier who had always wished to learn mosaic setting, but was too poor to do so, went to the war, was wounded, and is a mosaic setter today. The natural ability and adaptability of the Italian (which, allow me to say, perhaps American civilization could make more use of than it does, in its immigrants) enables the men to find new hope and comfort in life after the casualties of the war.

Another phase of war school work and perhaps, to me, the most interesting, is this. You know that Italy stands now on ground that previously, technically was Austrian. You know that this ground is racially, sentimentally, historically Italian. Four thousand square kilometers of this technically Austrian land have up to this day been reclaimed by Italy. As you know, the boundary of this new part of Italy, or rather this reclaimed and reinstated part of Italy we say redeemed Italy," which seems to convey the whole thing- - has for the present a boundary that is constantly moving forward, in fact, that we hope to move forward a little more. As soon as As soon as Cadorna's army marches on,

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the army of the children steps into school again; only the school is now Italian, because the children are Italian. Their fathers were Italian. Some of them have died for the Italian cause. Most of them have been imprisoned under irons or under other material and moral oppression and suppression, because they were Italians and because they wanted to say so.

Therefore, we felt it our duty to give these children and these men the satisfaction of seeing the real Italy come to them, and thus make the dream of their lives a reality, and destroy the nightmare of the treaty of Campoformis, about which, by the way, allow me to point out, as one of the idiosyncrasies of history, the astonishing fact that, while the Napoleonic arrangement has disappeared from France and the rest of Europe, it should have remained to the disadvantage of Italy and to the advantage of Austria in just this part of Italian territory.

Now, the situation is this. We have sixteen thousand children going to school in these reclaimed lands. They go to the schools of the Trentino and of the Isonzo. The Austrian schools were great big buildings which have been turned into hospitals, which naturally enable the Austrians to shell them, of which shelling, by the way, I have some very good pictures. The Italians have built quite a new type of schools, long, rambling shell proof vaults. Every shed and every barrack has a refuge, a cellar or sandbagged hole in which the children burrow as soon as the Austrian aircraft is announced. The sound of a fog horn warns the children. They have learned to recognize the signals and every other sound connected with the appearance of the enemy aircraft and they file down in very good order in the refuge. They are not in the least afraid, and when they go down they sing the national hymns, the national hymns that Austria did not allow them to sing, and that the older ones had learned in secret from their fathers and mothers; and now they sing them at the top of their voices with glee, particularly the Inno di Mameli, with its verse about "The eagle of Austria "having “lost some feathers," which is particularly pertinent when you consider that the Austrian eagle is hovering above with its bombs. When the Austrian