ALLPORT SAYS 18 DRAFT DISTRACTING TO STUDY

With the new 18-19 draft, students at Harvard College face a very difficult problem in their school work, Gordon W. Allport, associate professor of Psychology said, since the uncertainty of their immediate future makes it difficult for them to concentrate on the present.

This summer the Freshmen had an excellent scholastic record, but this might be because of their chance for completing a full course. This chance no longer exists, however, and the future has become completely "unstructured."

Increased Seriousness Among Students

There is nevertheless a marked increase in seriousness among such upperclassmen and Freshmen as are studying for essential jobs. Some of this seriousness has been instilled into other members of the University as well, and thus the handicap of uncertainty may be overcome as it was this summer.

Certainly, he said, it is necessary for the men to be more purposeful, since one's school record will have great importance not only in the selection of officers in the armed forces but in the acceptance of men for further college work after the war.

Thinks Men Will Come Back

Allpert also stated that he thought that most of the men now in the Army, or going into the Army, who do not get a chance to finish College will return after the war. "A similar mass movement occurred after the last war, when there was a tremendous swing to the humanities," he said.

Besides the obvious desire to get away from war that will exist at that time there will be other forces bringing the men back to college. The psychological impulse to finish a job half done, "to make an enclosure," will have some effect, as well as the great excess of untrained manpower and shortage of skilled technicians that will surely come after the peace.

Those who have trouble directing their lives in the uncertainly that surrounds them, Allport advised, should try to forget their troubles completely for short periods