Wanted--A Policy

Amid the cheery bustle ushering in a new campus autumn the blow fell. Secretary of War Stimson told U.S. colleges that the Army had decided to take every able-bodied college man as soon as he reached draft age, even reservists who had been excused from active duty to continue their studies. His announcement, coupled with probable lowering of the draft age from 20 to 18, seemed to many a college president a death sentence for colleges.

College presidents hastened to Washington for a confab. At Yale, Freshman James A. Atwood III went so far as to put in a phone call to the White House in a vain effort to find out where he stood. At Brown, balding President Henry Wriston denounced the Stimson decision as "a clear reversal of War Department policy." Said Wriston:

"Ever since the advent of the crisis, public officials and military officers have directed at the colleges and their students a series of conflicting statements, warnings, threats. There have been almost as many 'errors growing out of procrastinations, indecisions, conflicts of authority, clashes of personalities, lack of understanding' in this matter as in the case of rubber. What is the remedy? It is the same remedy that is now being tardily applied to the rubber problem--a single coherent policy."

Unhappy college presidents last week would almost have welcomed a revival of World War I's fumbling Students' Army Training Corps. Despite its inefficiency, S.A.T.C. at least put the boys in uniform, gave them a definite job to do, saved colleges from bankruptcy (by means of Government subsidy). Washington admits that by contrast it has vastly bungled the job this time. Typical bungles:

> Undergraduates have been torn between hard choices: 1) to quit college and put on a uniform; 2) to mark time in college while waiting for a commission.

> They are under a dizzy recruiting barrage by at least five different groups: Army, Navy and Marine reserve units, War Manpower Commission, war industry.

> Because reservists are "subject to call at any time," no enlistee knows whether he will be allowed to finish his studies--or be put in a job where he can use them. (Adding to the confusion, the Navy last week said that for the time being it did not intend to follow the Army's example in inducting reservists.) Enlistments have been spotty, ranging from 75% of the undergraduates at Yale to 6% at N.Y.U.

> Though the Government demands that colleges help train technical specialists for the Army, it has not backed up its demand with cash.

Secretary Stimson, riled by the criticisms of Brown's Wriston et al., retorted last week: "My statement . . . has been interpreted in some quarters to mean the end of all higher education for the duration of the war. This is a misapprehension. . . . It is hoped that colleges will maintain their training of students in engineering, medicine and other sciences." Liberal arts colleges were more alarmed than ever.

Result of all this confusion is an estimated 20% drop in college enrollments this fall, on top of a 10% drop last year. This has alarmed not only college presidents but the Army & Navy, for U.S. undergraduates constitute their No. 1 pool of potential officers.

What undergraduates think was reported last week by test experts of the American Council on Education. Polling 1,820 sophomores, they discovered that less than 2% thought they could serve their country best as privates; 50% thought they could do so by continuing their education.

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