In its first years, the Field Service had excelled in not only rallying volunteers to its cause, but in getting things done: raising money; recruiting; buying ambulances and sending them to the units at the front; arranging overseas transport, assignment and oversight of its drivers; cooperating with government agencies---particularly the Army---on both sides of the Atlantic. AFS had proved itself to be businesslike in its affairs.

Now the "business" to be accomplished was the recruitment and assignment of graduate students to universities abroad. This was a Cause with far less popular appeal than driving ambulances had been. And where had AFS Headquarters gone? It had faded with militarization and disappeared after the War. AFS was now a network of veterans, volunteers and well-wishers---an Association which produced reunions and an occasional bulletin. Nonetheless, it forged ahead, carrying the banner of its French Fellowships during the 20 years between the world wars through three distinct stages :

1) The "hands on" period (1920-1924).
2) Godfather status (1924-1935).
3) The Piatt Andrew legacy (1935-1942).

The "hands on" period did not begin immediately, because AFS came on board in 1920 after the Society for American Fellowships in French Universities had already determined the composition of the first batch of graduate students headed for France. A full third of the second batch of students---the Class of 1920, as it were, reflected AFS priorities. There was a Frenchman, Pierre Lepaulle, who would study at Harvard Law School for two years. There were six AFS drivers, including Paul Cadman (of California) who would later take the helm of AFS French Fellowship promotion.

The idea of scholarships in both France and America quickly ran afoul of the problem of exchange rates, as was made clear in 1920 in a letter written to Andrew by the first French exchange student, Pierre Lepaulle. "Now what with the depreciation and my scholarship being paid in French francs, I am only able to scrape by, without at all being able to pay my return passage." Despite the generous gesture of Georges Clemenceau, who contributed the entire income of his 1922 American conferences to the French Fellowships, the Foundation's "buying power" continued to diminish. Moreover, AFS veterans had moved on into their lives: Andrew had again resumed his career in politics and was preoccupied by his congressional responsibilities in Washington. Galatti, who had first coached football at St. Mark's and then took up a career as a broker on the New York Stock Market, would marry and found a family. Without the attention of these two prime movers, the initial enthusiasm for the "exchanges" waned. From the initial 30 French Fellows per year (including those who held two-year scholarships) in 1920 and 1921, the number dropped to 16 in 1922, 13 in 1923 --- all of these uniquely Americans studying in France.

It was then that AFS shifted from "manager" to "patron" or "godfather" of the Fellowships. In 1924, the administration of the AFS university "exchanges" was passed on to the Institute of International Education in New York, through the intermediary of one of AFS's old Paris American friends, James Hazen Hyde, the founder of the first professor exchanges between Harvard and the Sorbonne.

The Institute of International Education was organized on February 1, 1919, as the result of plans outlined by its Director, Professor Stephen Duggan, who, even before the War, had emphasized the great desirability of establishing some organization in the United States for the development of a better understanding on the part of our people of the problems and difficulties of other peoples. [...] The growth of the student exchanges inaugurated by the Institute between American colleges and universities, on the one hand, and foreign countries, on the other, has been remarkable. Since 1920, when the Institute played a large part in the welcoming of French students to this country, it has been active in arranging for the interchange of students on fellowships. [...] Because of the excellent technique developed by the Institute in the management of its exchange fellowships, certain other organizations granting definite cash stipends for Americans abroad have placed their fellowships and scholarships in its hands for administration. In this group are the following: American Field Service Fellowships for French Universities, Inc; Germanistic Society of America, Inc; Scholarships for the Junior Year Abroad (for France and Germany); Carnegie Art Scholarships (summer).

Institute of International Education, Its Organization, Aims and Activities, Bulletin No 2, 1936

In the absence of a truly AFS orientation --- except for priority given to former ambulance drivers --- the Institute of International Education administered the French Fellowships professionally, but certainly not in the spirit of "Tous et tout pour la France". From 1924 to 1932, on the average of 10 scholarships would be granted yearly, 5 from 1932 to 1939.

In the 1930's --- the Depression years --- the American Field Service Fellowships in French Universities were able to grant only five scholarships per year, a reality far removed from the 1919 goal of 127 "as memorials for Field Service men who gave their lives in the war." In 1935, Andrew returned to the Foundation to make a last gesture. He exacted that French students again be able to benefit from the Fellowships. Unfortunately, Andrew would not live to greet Maurice Pérouse upon his arrival in Boston in September 1936.

Before he died, Andrew had put the AFS "exchanges" back on track. For the years 1936, 1937 and 1938, there would always be a French "French Fellow". The advent of the war in Europe in 1939 opened a parenthesis: a single (American) Fellow that year, none in 1940, enabling the Foundation to award four scholarships in 1941, all to Frenchmen. Thus, from 1919 to 1943, before World War II put a temporary end to the exchanges, of the 168 French Fellows, 7 were actually French.

Piatt Andrew died in 1936. How might one describe his legacy, as reflected in the transformation of the French Fellowships? In a word:"exchange"---as opposed to the underwriting of study abroad. In 1919, he had put it this way:

The visible and outward body of the old Field Service is gone for ever. It exists today only in memory. The old Fords have been to their last posts, have carried their last freight of wounded poilus, have run their last convoy and have passed to more banal purposes and to other hands. [...] Yet the Field Service lives and will live as long as the memory of any of us survives. As the years go by, opportunities will be found to perpetuate the old associations born during the war. [...] Let us try to make of the comradeship born of the last four years, not merely an association of veterans of the war that is past, but a living organization with a vital purpose still to perform. The main object which the old Field Service tried to achieve was to interpret France to America and America to France, to spread abroad through the States a knowledge of what France is and has done and means, to help other Americans to feel and appreciate what we have felt and appreciated during these past four years. This effort must not end with the war. The four or five thousand of us who volunteered for France during the war can rededicate ourselves to the same ideal in the years to come. With an organisation perfected throughout the length and breadth of America, we ought not merely to establish clubs and arrange reunions to perpetuate the past. There are many other things we can do looking to the future. It has been suggested that we might bring over to America from time to time representative men of France as American Field Service lecturers --- such men for instance as used to speak in old "21" at farewell section dinners --- and with our extensive affiliations we would be able to arrange for them hearings in all of the great American universities and cities. It has also been suggested that we establish in the universities and communities from which we come American Field Service scholarships for American students in France and for French students in America. In many such ways we can make the Old Field Service an active and important factor in promoting the same ends for which we have given ourselves in France, a factor which will continue to count in the world long after all of us are gone.

A. Piatt Andrew, "Ave et Vale", AFS Bulletin, April 1919