The Draft and the Student of Science.

The national government has acted wisely in exempting from immediate military service all students of draft age who are regularly engaged in engineering studies, thus placing them in the same category with students in our medical schools. The experience of the other warring countries has demonstrated how large a part engineering, in its wider applications, is now called upon to play in military operations on land, at sea and in the air. We must keep our resources in engineering skill recruited to top notch at all hazards.

A closely related question arises in this same connection. Ought not this policy to be extended to students in all branches of applied science and indeed to advanced students of pure science as well? There are no fixed limits between applied science and engineering if the latter term is broadly construed. The chemical expert may not call himself an engineer but in these days of chlorine gas, thermite bombs and other such instruments of carnage he is quite as indispensable on the battlefront as the builder of roads and bridges. All applied science, moreover, depends on pure science. It is in this latter field that the pioneering of research must be done. If we neglect pure science we shall in time have no science to apply. Any impairment of this country's present facilities for research in science, whether pure or applied, is therefore to be avoided if possible. --Boston Herald