NEEDLESS HANDICAPS

Compulsory military training at subsidized colleges has long oppressed students, yet it was not until very recently that investigation proved that the element of compulsion was only a militaristic myth. In institutions of learning subsidized under the Morrill land-grant act, the law requires that "the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and in including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts." Legal advice indisputably shows that the law, therefore, requires only that military training be offered.

The first land-grant college to take advantage of this opportunity by making military drill elective was the University of Wisconsin. The authorities of other colleges have as yet done nothing to alleviate their students of this unnecessary burden. In not a few places, however, the undergraduates have taken matters into their own hands and started a vigorous campaign against the injustice. In the University of Minnesota the students have formed an Anti-Compulsory Military Drill League which is engaged in spreading its sensible propaganda broadcast through the still-shackled colleges of the country. Undergraduate opinion, seldom so unanimous, is gathering momentously and its protest voices itself continually by the increasing number of student demonstrations. Surely the time has come when American universities, no longer training camps for an immediate war, can more nearly resemble seats of learning.