LEARNED PRIVATES.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 167, 15 July 1919, Page 7

LEARNED PRIVATES.

m t VERSATILITY IX THE AUSTRALIAN RAXKSSpeaking upon the work of the A.I.F. Education -Service, Lieut. J. H. Vaughan gave some interesting examples of educational t*!<-nt which has been discovered in the ranks of the Australian Army since the armistice There were numerous instances of professional men, architects, clergymen, and lawyers, who had been fighting as private soldiers. In the rank and file of a jjun team in France there were no fewer than three Bachelors of Science, whilst some medical men had enlisted as ordinary soldiers in order to carry a rifle ratner than a stethoscope A graduate in civil engineering with a valuable and varied experience, holding the rank of a sapper in the Australian Engineers, was entrusted with the difficult task of determining the safe-bearing loads of soils for new foundations in France. But perhaps the most striking example was disclosed when at the request of the French Government applications were called for throughout the A-I.F. for appointment to a Commission proceeding to Morocco to report upon the suitability of that country for the breeding of merino sheep. The rank of the applicants ranged from colonels to privates. One of the latter had, prior to the war, managed a station comprising a quarter of a million sheep, and was a highly skilled iitoek breeder and wool-elaeser. The successful applicant, however, an infantryman, jossessed even higher qualification?. He owned a million acres of land, had organised and conducted droving-tours from the Kimberleys in West Australia to the Queensland Coast, a distance of nearly two thousand miles, and from the northern territory to the Southern Ocean, had sunk artesian b:>res ami was a recognised expert'in water finding. Moreover, he could speak French fluently, and had other brilliant educational qualifications.