FIRST CORPS REORGANIZED

The reorganization of the First Corps of Cadets, Massachusetts National Guard, is an event of especial interest to members of the University and to graduates, for like many Guard organizations it has had close ties with Harvard, and in former years has drawn to its ranks many men from the University.

This Corps, one of the oldest active military organizations in the country, has had an interesting history. Organized in 1741, under the title of the "Governor's Company of Cadets," it has maintained a practically uninterrupted existence up to the present date, and still holds important special privileges accorded it by the Commonwealth in 1786. Through the Revolution and the Civil War the First Corps of Cadets served with distinction but its greatest service in the latter emergency lay in sending to the army over one hundred and fifty men, trained in its ranks, to hold commissions. This record, repeated in the World War, makes a peculiar appeal to undergraduates ambitious to qualify for commissions as officers, through the solution of actual problems of tactics, administration and discipline, and through keeping in constant touch with the progress of military thought, for in an organization essentially a training-school for officer material, more advanced and intensive work is possible than in the average regiment.

The Corps is being formed as a separate four-company battalion of infantry, as before. A new army organization is in view, and when this is officially published, it is probable that the First Corps will become a machine-gun organization, and it expects, to this end, to inaugurate practical training along the lines prescribed for infantry machine gun companies, including riot duty and field problems. Company drill is held one evening weekly for three weeks of the month, the remaining weekly period being devoted to battalion drill and parade. With the exception of two weeks tour of field duty performed in the summer at camp, all these drills are held during the college year.