GEN. SHERBURNE CRITICIZES COLLEGE-TRAINED OFFICERS

"The general outline of the plan for military instruction at Harvard seems excellent," said General John Henry Sherburne '99 when interviewed for the CRIMSON recently. "One of the most serious troubles in the last war was to obtain trained and experienced officers. It is very fitting that Harvard should establish a school to remedy this great deficiency.

"There is one thing which however should be remembered. A college man, because he is a college man, is not thereby given a divine right to become an officer. Many of the best officers that I have known have not been college men, and I have known many college men who did not have the officer's qualifications. An officer is not merely a student; his primary qualification is leadership, and the power to command. In my opinion no officer should be commissioned until he has seen service as an enlisted man, and come to understand the view-point of the enlisted man. If he shows ability as corporal or sergeant, it is fair to assume the he will show the same ability as an officer, and then is the time to give him all the opportunities for advancement.

"Whatever military system is adopted in this country, the University instruction must inevitably become a part of it. It may be Congress will rehabilitate the National Guard, in which case the University could support an artillery batallion to which men, ambitious to receive military training may belong, and after a team of service, and a further term of study, might receive commissions in the reserve.

"Harvard has for years supported several organizations of the National Guard, and in the last war hundreds of her men went out as commissioned officers from these organizations. If these men could have had the benefit of higher military education in College it would not have been necessary to send them to Plattsburg and Summer Schools.