Defense Instruction

The committee on defense Instruction appointed by the Board of Trustees at its April meeting was granted broad powers over the curriculum. The American Defense Dartmouth Group in Hanover had functioned effectively during the entire College year, and will continue to carry on its valuable activities. But it had no power to take action in behalf of any authoritative group within the organization of the College. Complaints that "nothing is done" or "nothing can be done" led di- rectly to the appointment of the new committee, with power to work on the task of "relating the curriculum of the College and of the Associated Schools to the emergency of national defense."

But the committee was also instructed by the Trustees on its general objectives: "It is not contemplated that the purpose of the Committee will be to consider sweeping revisions or drastic changes in the curriculum".... and it will "determine both in the immediate or the more long range view in what ways, within the curricular structure of the liberal arts college and in keeping with its traditional purposes, Dartmouth can best fit its students for service in this period of national crisis."

Last month the committee took first steps, as announced elsewhere in this issue of the ALUMNI MAGAZINE, designed to permit students to capitalize upon their courses of instruction next year to give them a greater degree of preparedness, but without by any means turning the curriculum upside down. The group has sensed the desire of the faculty to help students just as much as possible in the crisis which every man of college age faces. There are many ways in which Dartmouth can reassure and help its students, although it is far from being a technical training school and must retain its emphasis on the liberal arts. The establishment of a representative committee not only to talk about taking such steps, in defense instruction, for student benefit but actually having the authority to do something is a sign, in our opinion, that the seriousness of the emergency is realized in Hanover and that the College, along with other men and institutions, stands ready to adapt itself to the times.