Mil Sci Miscalculates

Home-brew has a reputation for turning flat, and the acceleration scheme cooked up by the Harvard Military Science Department is no exception. The program envisioned for ROTC men is more inflexible than necessary. It requires that every student in Mil Sci I and II, without exception, attend twelve weeks of Summer School and take half of Mil Sci II or III, respectively. This schedule is not a University or a War Department policy; it is the brain child solely of the Mil Sci Department. Washington has directed each local unit to arrange its program to fit the war-time policy of the college in question. Harvard does not require that every man come to Summer School, leaving Mil Sci out on the curricular limb.

Lonesomeness is painful; in this case its results are even more so. Of the 205 Freshmen now in Mil Sci I, only 70 at the most can ever be admitted to Mil Sci III. That figure is a War Department quota, and there are no known plans to change it. For the 135 men who do not go on in the course, Mil Sci II in Summer School is little more than an expensive waste of time. For the man who would otherwise work in the summer, the loss of income may be irreparable. At other colleges, the Military Science Departments either have decided not to accelerate, have made the program voluntary, or have arranged for aid to those students unable to afford the speed-up. No such plan has yet been undertaken at Harvard.

There are two possible solutions. One is that of making the summer course voluntary. This answer faces the objection that the Department then would be forced to give both the first and second halves of both Mil Sci II and III next September. Such a complicated schedule is difficult, but it is no more so than the similar situation now existing in many Mathematics and Physics courses. It is possible for a student to take two courses in Mil Sci simultaneously, for little of the material in the field is directly dependent upon earlier work in the subject. A partial reorganization of the four courses is certainly not out of the question.

An even more satisfactory arrangement would be a decision to choose from this year's Mil Sci I men, rather than a year from now at the end of Mil Sci II, those suited for advanced work. Only those selected need attend Summer School, and scholarships similar to those planned for men training for other branches of the armed forces can be provided. The 135 surplus Mil Sci I students would then be relieved of a course which will be worthless to them, and those of the remaining seventy in need can be released from a heavy financial burden.

The present program for acceleration is an unfortunate error. It fails to allow for the extra Freshmen and it does not take into account the improvident but worthy undergraduate. Either of the alternatives will solve the riddle, and one of them should be adopted before the Summer Session begins.