Colleges Will be Used for Military Training

War Manpower Commission Announces Plans for Enrolling College, Equipment and Instruction in the War Effort

AFTER MANY MONTHS OF UNCERTAINTY the mission which colleges and university are to carry out in the nation's war effort has been determined, and was announced on December 12th through a joint statement by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy with the approval of the War Manpower Commission. The government has rejected all proposals to defer the military service of part of the nation's youth until they have received an accelerated liberal education. The decision has been made that all of the manpower within the ages of college youth must be assigned to military services, or essential war activities, and cannot be invested in educational institutions no matter what the future profit might be.

The facilities of colleges and universities are, therefore, to be used for the training of military personnel under two new programs which have been developed by Army and Navy officials in collaboration with educational advisers. These programs, the Army Specialized Training Program, and the Navy College Training Program, have been announced in memoranda sent to all college presidents. They supercede the Army Enlisted Reserve Program, the Naval Reserve College Program (V-Classes) and the R. O. T. C. Programs and provision is made for the orderly liquidation of these reserve groups.

It remains to be seen whether or not this is the final step, or merely another intermediate step in the solution of the problem of how to make available to each of the armed services the number of able young men needed this year, next year, and every year until the war is concluded, without dissipating at its source the supply of somewhat older young men with disciplined minds and broad flexible intelligence, and the supply of men professionally trained. Unless such men are available every year, a long war cannot be won. Unless they are available in numbers in the post-war years, we shall lack the power to plan and manage reconstruction.

With this problem college officials and the procurement officers of the armed services have been struggling during thfe past year, first competitively, later cooperatively. The colleges did what they could to speed the flow of graduates. The services tried to choose and set aside as reserves, a selection of men who would be more useful to them later than now. However, until the War Manpower Commission was established, there was no authority willing to accept the responsibility of eciding that the risk of being without college-trained men tomorrow is preferable to the risk of withholding men from combat today.

In making that decision, the War Manpower Commission acted with full knowledge of the risks involved, and after consultation with boards of Army and Navy officers and representatives of education. It is academic now to question whether the government is being shortsighted. With the premise laid down that liberal education is less vital than military training, the colleges and the training divisions of the armed forces must cooperate in finding the best and quickest means of fitting men for specific military tasks.

Many details of the new programs which will be the vehicle of this cooperation are now in the process of being determined. The skeleton plan is outlined on the chart printed with this article which was prepared from the memorandum released to colleges on December 12th and some subsequent data.

About 300 colleges are expected to have the opportunity to participate in the new training programs. These are now being selected. To each of these colleges, the Army or Navy will send one or more units of approximately 500 men for instruction in a curriculum of subjects specified by the Army or Navy. These soldiers and sailors will be on active duty in uniform and under military discipline. There will be several courses of study of varying length and degree of difficulty. The courses will be largely technical, and designed to train men for specific military tasks. The Army and Navy will contract with each college for the housing, feeding and instructing of these students.

The Army units will be composed of enlisted men 18-22 years of age, who have completed their basic training, and accepted for specialized training. The men will be selected by methods which will assure their being intellectually, temperamentally, psychologically and educationally capable of attaining the standard of academic proficiency established by the Army for the schools to which they are assigned. There is no indication that the men will have any choice of colleges, or the colleges any choice of men.

Navy units will be composed of men 17-20 who have completed high school, or have equivalent formal education. The selection of men will normally be made during the senior year in high school, and prior to their induction or enlistment. Successful candidates will be permitted to express a preference for some college to which they wish to be assigned and, within geographical limits, these preferences will be respected so far as possible. Candidates may also express preliminary choice of several branches of the service including the Marine Corps and Coast Guard.

Obviously, the relationship between these students and the college to which they are sent for instruction, will not be the same as the relationship of a class admitted to Dartmouth under the Selective Process of Admission, and matriculated as candidates for the Bachelor of Arts degree. Neither the length or content of the Army or Navy courses will qualify them for A. B. degrees, although academic credit can, and probably will be assigned to each course, and after the war the student will be able to transfer these credits to any college, and materially reduce the length of time he would otherwise spend in meeting the requirements for an A. B. degree.

Obviously, also, the soldier and sailor students will not secure from their residence in college halls the advantages of liberal education, or the intangible benefits of a college life that normally includes hours of leisure in an intellectual environment, and participation in a variety of organized extra-curriculum activities. They will, however, receive excellent instruction in subjects such as mathematics, physics, and English which are good disciplines and have application to many fields other than military science.

"DARTMOUTH UNDYING"

The men who are fortunate enough to be sent to Dartmouth (if ours is one of the selected colleges) will have some of the same advantages over those sent elsewhere that students at Dartmouth have always enjoyed. They need not miss the thrills of "soft September sunsets.... the crunch of feet on snow."

For the duration of the war the men available to pursue a liberal arts course will be so small in number that no college can offer a completely normal course of study under normal conditions. The students in uniform and under military discipline will dominate every campus. The civilian student body will be limited to freshmen below draft age and a few upperclassmen exempted from war service because of physical disability. There will not be enough of them to support fraternities, dramatics, varsity sports and similar activities. A complete suspension of operation will almost certainly be necessary for many of the colleges that are not chosen to participate in this new plan.

Dartmouth College has applied and hopes to be among the colleges selected to train men under this new plan. We hope to be assigned a Naval unit. We can accommodate such a unit with excellent facilities, and the Navy already has an administrative organization here to which a student unit can be attached. This might be the deciding argument for our selection. If we are not chosen to participate in either the Army or Navy programs, we will be fortunate, indeed, in having previously obtained our present school of one thousand Naval officers.

For one more semester we shall have a liberal arts college of approximately one thousand men. The new Army-Navy plan provides for the gradual liquidation of the reserve classes to which students have been attracted during the last year. After graduating the class of 1943 in December, we have in our enrollment about 350 men in the Naval Reserve V Classes, 250 men in the Army Enlisted Reserve, and 50 men in the Marine Reserve or holding provisional commissions. These students will not be taken out of college until the end of the spring semester, and many of them can remain at Dartmouth for several semesters, although all will presumably be in uniform by July and organized as military units.

In addition to these men who must remain at Dartmouth to preserve their reserve status, we have approximately 300 students below draft age. We have, perhaps, 100 men who have received deferments from their draft boards that do not expire until May or June. We have a small number of physically disqualified men. Even presuming that all of the others will anticipate being drafted so early in the semester that they will not return on January 16th, and that some deferments will be cancelled, and some seventeen year old freshmen will enlist, our enrollment can still exceed the mark of 1000.

Chairman McNutt of the Manpower Commission has urged students to remain in college until called. Liberal arrangement has been made to pro rate tuition and room charges as an inducement to men to return, even if they are uncertain of remaining. The Navy still offers a reserve enlistment to seventeen year old students who are in college or have been notified of admission to college. These factors encourage us to believe that from January through April, the College will not be much changed, except for the absence of one of the four classes. We have no opportunity to replace the graduated seniors with a new class of freshmen until the summer term. How large the next freshman class will be is extremely indefinite. It will depend upon how boys and parents decide whether it is worth while or not to have one year or part of a year of college before turning eighteen and being drafted. We are confident that many of them will decide that one year at Dartmouth is worth having, but without doubt, the class of 1947 will be the smallest in many years.

CHANGES IN APRIL

After the spring semester, which ends April 27, the enrollment of civilian students will be very small. By that time all students subject to the draft will have gone, or received notice of imminent induction. The College will then consist of pre-medical, pre-engineering, and science majors who have been deferred, a handful of men with physical disabilities, and the few sophomores who have not reached their eighteenth birthday. The composition of the student body will continue to be equivalent to this group, unless there are further changes in the plans of the Manpower Commission. An advantageous change is already under consideration, there being reason to believe that a small number of college students will be exempted from military service and trained as a Manpower Reserve for war industry and technology.

By April some of the new units of Army and Navy students should be organized. We shall hope that one of these will be occupying Dartmouth dormitories to boost our Naval student population.

Readjustments will be numerous and complicated. We have already attacked the problem of securing many additional instructors for elementary mathematics, chemistry, physics, and engineering drawing by giving special refresher courses m these sciences to members of the faculty who now teach courses in the Humanities and Social Sciences which may not be heaving elected in the future. Some members of the faculty will take advantage of tempo rary leaves of absence to accept government positions. Some men in every department will be needed to teach the small numbers of regular students. English and history will be included in the Navy curriculum. No drastic step to reduce the faculty appears now to be necessary, and none is contemplated. A solution to the problem of fraternity operation is being sought. The maintenance of class organization will present difficulties. We may be forced to revise our calendar again to coordinate the college terms with the length of courses to be given in military training.

In solving our problems, we shall retain all that we can of our cultural environment and liberal tradition; we shall not lower our standards of admission or scholastic requirements; and we shall adhere to the principles formulated by President Hopkins and approved by the Board of Trustees. The President has announced that Dartmouth now, as in all of the nation's wars, will make every possible contribution to the government's need but also, having never closed its doors since the enrollment of the first class in 1770, "Dartmouth will retain the organization and offer the curriculum of the liberal college for those by whom such preparation for living in the post-war world may be undertaken."

DEAN LLOYD K. NEIDLINGER '23Central points of information for undergraduates on war service, the draft, reserve corps,and the new Army-Navy programs are the Dean's Office, Professor Neef's Personnel Bureau, and Professor Messer's American Defense Dartmouth Group Office. Dean Neidlinger describes Manpower Commission plans for students in accompanying article.

DEAN OF THE COLLEGE