"Turbulent Times"

World War I drove Charles Austin Beard, dean of U. S. historians, from the faculty of Columbia University. He was then militantly anti-German and prowar, but in October 1917 he resigned from the University because it had fired Pacifists James McKeen Cattell and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Dana. Said he: "The University is ... under the control of a small and active group of trustees who . . . are reactionary and visionless in politics and narrow and medieval in religion."

Last week World War II brought venerable white-haired, deaf Charles Beard back to Columbia. Still peppery but now a pacifist, Dr. Beard last week was one of the most convinced and outspoken isolationists in the U. S. Accepting a job as visiting professor from President Nicholas Murray Butler, to whom he gave his resignation 22 years ago, Dr. Beard said: "What is past is past," began to teach a seminar of graduate students "The Concept of Democracy in American Political Thought."

Throughout the land, college and university presidents, beginning the fall term last week, generally preached neutrality to their students, pleaded for academic calm. Most militantly neutral, but by no means calm, was University of Rochester's young President Alan Valentine (onetime Rhodes scholar). Dr. Valentine wired to Republican Senators a demand that the Neutrality Act be let alone, went on the radio to read to the People a letter to President Roosevelt. Cried he: "Mr. President, is it to be peace, and how? Or is it to be war, and why?"

Other presidents: Cooper Union's Edwin S. Burdell: "In turbulent times such as these . . . steps must be taken to keep young America on an even keel. . . . Memories of the last war, when students were eager to leave school in response to the call of the military, are yet too fresh. Parents should make every effort to prevent the development of a similar state of mind. . . ."

Mount Holyoke's Roswell Gray Ham: "We should not be swept away."

Tufts' Leonard Carmichael: "More than ever the need of our democracy is for trained citizens and specialists who can carry on the work of building in a world that elsewhere is being torn to its foundation."

Russell Sage's James Laurence Meader (an exception): "England and France . . . have the right to expect every type of service we are capable of rendering short of sending an expeditionary army. . . . [We must come] to their active assistance at once rather than wait until we find it necessary to fight Hitler and all that he stands for single-handed."

Meanwhile:

> George Washington University enlisted Brigadier General Oliver Lyman Spaulding (retired) to give a course on U. S. military history.

> New York University introduced a course in Polish.

> Cornell University started one in Russian.

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