THE MUSES DISARM

Two events of the past week testify in a striking fashion to the reaction which has set in against the application of a system of military conscription to American schools and colleges. At Amherst, a conclave of New England high school principals adopted resolutions against compulsory drill and even more noteworthy in view of the almost complete dominance of the R. O. T. C. there a year ago, President Marsh has ruled that military science shall no longer be a required course at Boston University.

Both these reforms, it will be noted resulted not from student ebullition, but from a change in policy on the part of the authorities. Educators are evidently awakening to the dangers of superimposing the rules and regulations of the War Department upon their charges. For even disregarding the jingoistic attitude which inspired compulsory military training, the advantage to a college or university of a department over which the president or administrative board have no control is decidedly questionable from an educational standpoint.

In many colleges where military science is compulsory, it enjoys the distinction of being the only course in college which is so. Where this is the case, attendance at military science classes is generally more rigidly enforced than at the elective ones. And, if these courses take the form of drilling--as is frequently the case, an undergraduate military hierarchy is foisted upon the undergraduate body.

Such tendencies as these divert college life from its proper sphere within the arts and sciences, and place an emphasis upon military training, which even its platitudinous ideals of "better citizenship" and "mental and moral development" can hardly justify.