Now Is the Time . . .

It takes quite a bit of work to arrange for a First Aid Course at Harvard. First you've got to find out who wants to take the course. Then you must get in touch with the Red Cross and arrange with them to get an instructor at a suitable time. The next job is to find a classroom, and with the Navy invading even the Littauer Center and the Music Building, that's not easy. Finally, the students have to be notified. All this is a good day's work, and involves expenses for printing, postage, and phone calls as well. Then, if only ten per cent of the people who signed up in the first place turn out, you have good reason to be annoyed.

That's the situation faced by the War Service Committee right now. Of the more than 350 people who signed up for first aid courses on the War Service questionnaire at registration, less than 40 showed up for the first meetings of courses in the past two days. They had been notified by individual postcards and by posters (at an added expense), so that they can hardly claim ignorance as an excuse. Classes were scheduled at five different times, to fit anyone's program. Yet there weren't enough students in most classrooms to make up a bridge game, even with the instructor sitting in.

For those who actually signed up in the course, it seems hardly necessary to reemphasize the vital importance of first aid training. The elements of first aid should be common knowledge in normal times. No one can afford to be without them today. The WSC and the Red Cross have decided to offer students another chance for this training, and are making a recanvass of those who signed up. At least one course will begin on Monday. Perhaps the response today and tomorrow will show that Harvard men, too, are fighting this war.