Educational M-Day

"Without in any way minimizing the importance of informed leadership in the post-war world or the difficulties of winning the peace, we must recognize that a speedy victory is the prerequisite to any post-war world worth organizing. It is for war, there, and not for peace that we must now lay our immediate educational plans."

So said President Conant in his recent Annual Report, and it was the most important, though not the most original statement that he made. If educators in general adopt this antithesis of "business as usual," a good deal of time and energy will be saved. In most colleges definite conflicts will appear between "standards" and defense. There can be no question as to the choice. The colleges, certainly, must be the watchdogs of cultural values, and no needless sacrifices should be made. But on the other hand the scholar cannot in any way block an all-out war effort.

Measured by this yardstick of his own making, President Conant has written a brilliant war-time report. From the "first asset is the Faculty" clause to the recommendation for an over-all survey of skilled manpower, it is the work of an intelligent liberal thinking in down-to-earth terms. Space limitations will not allow a full discussion of the report in one editorial, but some of the more provocative suggestions deserve mention.

Perhaps the most striking of these was the proposal that the government select the intellectual cream of the high school graduates and give them a college education at government expense, pointing toward specialized war work. Peace-time pundits would be aghast at the mere thought, raising the cry of government control of education with all its totalitarian implications. There are dangers in subsidization from Washington, but even in normal days they could be successfully controlled. At any rate, the plan seems eminently feasible as a crisis measure; in the sort of war we are now waging it might well be disastrous to let every student volunteer or be drafted willy-nilly, without regard to what job would constitute his maximum usefulness. And incidentally, the system would be an indirect benefit to endowed institutions through the added tuition.

Another possibility touched on in the report depends less on government action than on the colleges themselves (quite properly, President Conant dealt with education in general, not just the Yard and its environs.) The idea was that a strict physical examination be given to every Freshman, to determine whether he would be fit for actual fighting. Charles Atlases would be required to engage in sports throughout their two-and-a-half or four years, while those who didn't pass would develop skills for behind-the-line work, which presumably wouldn't include climbing fences, enduring long exposure, or chasing little yellow men with a bayonet. This, again, is a concrete suggestion for gearing the colleges efficiently to the victory campaign. Though it may take a different shape finally, it points one way of eliminating the "chaos" existing in the present method of selection--a method which works great hardship on individuals as well as on the general welfare.

Other subjects dealt with flow in the same stream; expansion of the R.O.T.C.; further integration of the graduate schools with the college; the survey of manpower, before noted; using the war to jolt hoary, over-conservative doctrines out of academic institutions. Every thinking individual at Harvard, agreeing or disagreeing, can use President Conant's words as a springboard for answering the vital question of how to ensure that education shall be both "relevant and enduring."