Crash-Course Americanism
Mark Meigs uncovers a fascinating initiative enacted in France at the end of the First World War designed to turn American soldiers into students empowered with all the virtues of the Progressive era.
From the autumn of 1918 to the end of June 1919, universities and colleges in the United States were militarised by the Student Army Training Corps (SATC) in order to prepare young college men for the trials and sacrifices of war. In France, however, American education took a different turn with the formation, after the armistice, of post schools, divisional schools, and the American Expeditionary Forces University at Beaune.
In France, young American men were already in uniform and had already performed their sacrifices. They had been doing drill and standing guard duty for several years. Some had fought in the trenches and in the offensives of the final years of the war. In this setting, soldiers were partially demilitarised to become students. The army and the war, having first imposed a standard on these men, had made of them a kind of template on which democracy could be inscribed.
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