An Ear to the Ground

There is little hope for a draftee who says, "You can't do this to me; I'm a Harvard man." But bolstered by rumors that Government or Army officials have called it a "crime" to make buck privates of college-trained men, many undergraduates hope than once drafted, a degree or I.Q. test will single them out to be trained for technical or "white collar" jobs. Cheer has also been derived from occasional stories of college draftees who were promptly sent away to study meteorology or Intelligence Corps routine at Uncle Sam's expense. The picture is not quite that rosy. Men who obtain training useful to the army before they are drafted stand an excellent chance of making full use of their talents, but the ones who wait usually tote rifles.

However, the wealth of defense courses under consideration by the Faculty gives no undergraduate an excuse for leaving his immediate future unplanned. Math A and probably Physics B or C can be begun on February 2 of this year, and can be followed by training in the summer and fall that will culminate in Cruft Laboratory courses and a commission in the Signal Corps. Men who have had sufficient physics and math already may start the first half of Physics 3 after mid-years. It is also likely that an intensive Japanese course will be offered in February and a Chinese course in June, both sufficient to meet Intelligence Corps standards within a year's time. It is likely that bona fide defense students will be deferred until their training is complete. They will also be allowed to drop full courses to make room for defense.

The Army has already announced an eightmonth meteorology course to be given at M. I. T. beginning February 8, open to any college Seniors who have had Math A and Physics C. Trainees will be paid $127 per month, and will be commissioned as ground officers in the Air Corps.

Both the Army and the University will add to these offerings in the near future, and the Faculty is preparing a detailed announcement of all new defense courses from cartography to Russian.

The classification of draftees according to their talents must be done by the individual draftee, and not left up to the Army. The clerical job of looking into each man's possibilities would be a terrific undertaking, and the Army not only cannot do it but is not doing it. The Departments with relevant offerings are doing their utmost to train those who are willing to learn. But men who kid themselves into letting higher powers do their thinking for them are likely to end up scraping their cheeks and shoulders on the inside of a tank for $21 per month.