“Rejected.”

This man has heart trouble, and, strange to say, he does not know it.  If a man be of a pale complexion or rather sallow, the doctors will question him with regard to his stomach.  Of course the lungs are thoroughly tested.  It is not often, however, that any one presents himself who is suffering from lung trouble.  One man in particular was rejected because of the formation of his chest.  He was what is commonly known as “pigeon-breasted.”  The doctors said that there was not enough room for air in the lungs, and yet the rejected applicant was a well-known athlete.

But after all organic centers have been found in excellent condition several things yet remain to be tested.  A man’s feet must not blister easily.  His teeth must be good, because bad teeth interfere with digestion and are apt to develop stomach troubles.  Of course other things taken into consideration a particular defect may be overlooked according to the discretion of the doctor.  A man with his index finger gone stands no show.

A bow-legged man will be accepted, but a knocked-kneed man rarely.

The final test is of the eyes.  At a, distance of twenty feet one must be able to read letters a half inch in size.  Many tricks were played to read the letters when the eager candidate could see only a blur before him.  The favorite method was to memorize the letters from those who had taken the examination and knew in just what order the letters were situated.

How an army is formed.

The making of an army—­that is what it means to turn men of peace to men of war, to fit the mechanic or the business man, the farmer or the miner, for a passage at arms with a foreign foe—­has been for the present generation a matter of conjecture and of lessons drawn from previous passages in the nation’s chronicles.  In our war with Spain it became a fact, and the progress made in the various stages forms a chapter in the public history which is as interesting as any of those conquests of either peace or war which brighten for every American the pages of the achievements of the Union of the States.

It is impossible to tell just how an army is made.  During the long debates which preceded the declaration of war, eloquent men on both sides of the chambers of Congress pictured the strength of American arms, the shrillness of the scream of the eagle, and the sharpness of his talons, and applauding galleries saw in the coming combat little but the calling out of the vast body of the reserve strength of the American people, its marching upon the enemy, and return, bearing captured standards and leading prisoners in chains, to the music of the applauding nations, and the thanksgiving of a people made free by their struggles.  The other side was never touched.  The nights of toil by staff officers, the multiplied forces of mills and factories, the shriek of the trains crossing the continent, bearing men and munitions, and the hours of waiting for the completion of those warlike implements which the peaceful American has never before contemplated in the expansion of his industrial institutions, were entirely overlooked.