IN "Memoirs of the Harvard Dead in the War Against Germany," Mr. M. A. De Wolfe Howe has built quite the best war memorial that I have ever seen—better than cannon and monuments in parks, better than crossed swords and flags in museums and armories, better than the yards of inscribed brass plates which are crowding the epitaphs of deans and bishops from the walls of English cathedrals, better than groves and chimes of bells, better than flowers and the flickering flame which quicken emotion by the grave of the Unknown Soldier lying under the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, emblazoned with the victories of Napoleon and the names of his famous marshals.
I call this the best form of war memorial because it is intimately personal and holds us in lively remembrance of the young lives that are gone. It does not allow the mind to relax and rove among vague grandiose conceptions of military glory and embattled nations and warring machines and angels and horsemen of the Apocalypse, but keeps it closely fixed upon the spirited, lovable, gentlemanly boys from Groton and St. Paul's and the Roxbury Latin School, with a Harvard finishing, who, so far as Harvard is concerned, seemed necessary for conducting the most dangerous parts of the dirty and bloody business of bringing peace on earth and good will to men by the sword.
