IN HIS 1961 speech to Congress, John Kennedy promised to put a
man on the moon in ten years, even though most space scientists
had no idea how to. In a similar spirit, George Bush, in his
2002 state-of-the-union speech, suddenly called on all Americans
to give two years of their lives to voluntary national service,
and announced a new bureaucracy to help them do it.  This came
out of the blue. Does the president really want America to have
some sort of national service? And if he does, what should one
think about it?  Actually, America has a pilot version of
national service already. It is called Americorps, and was Bill
Clinton's pet project. Around 50,000 young Americorps volunteers
serve full-time in charities. The programme pays them a small
stipend for living costs, and at the end of their time they get
$4,725 a year towards university expenses. Mr Bush wants to turn
Americorps into more than a pilot scheme by adding 25,000
volunteers and boosting its budget by 50%.  Compared with the
110m Americans who