With the arrival of the Paris Saturday at New York the last members of the Harvard section of the American student Reconstruction Association returned to resume their studies.
The record of the summer's work of the Association was such as to elicit the warmest praise from the French architects and government officials under whom they worked. In the Department of the Meuse the students completed the surveys of four villages, Etain, Belleville, Vacherauville, and Clermonten-Argonne, and of one in the Aisne, as well as partly surveying the city of Verdun. The New York Herald, Paris edition, quotes the head engineer of Verdun as saying, "No surveyors ever in my employ have done such accurate or such rapid work as the American students".
In addition to surveying, the students drew up plans for seven villages, in the Department of the Meuse, the Marne, and the Aisne, and designed two schools for Rheims and three for Soissons.
Besides these, churches were designed for Verdun Iloureilles, and Bautheville, all in the Department of the Meuse. Plans for a club for Crouy (Aisne), a laundry for Soissons, and a farm for the village of Beine were also drawn up.
Mr. Robert L. Buell '20, the leader of the unit and the chief administrator during the summer, is quoted by the Herald as follows: "In spite of the temptations of travel and pleasure, regardless of the difficulties of adjusting themselves to new methods and the trying enviroment, the students have shown a splendid spirit of sincerity and devotion to the work which they set out to do and have accomplished much that will be of immediate and ultimate value to France.
"When they go home they will carry back with them an appreciation of what France of the reconstruction regions is doing, gratitude for the cordiality of their reception, and a desire to perpetuate the work which they have helped to start this year".
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