WHITE ELEPHANTS

The article printed elsewhere in today's CRIMSON on the subject of Naval and Military Science, reveals the numerous attractions that are dangled before the eyes of prospective students to induce them to enroll in these courses. One of the most salient points brought out in that comment is the method by which these courses were awarded college credit. During the war so many students were enrolled in Military Science and so much of their time was occupied in this subject that it was absolutely necessary to give academic credit so that the course requirements for a degree could be fulfilled. After the war the cause for such action was removed, but the practice still continues.

In addition to the attraction of receiving academic recognition for work in these fields, the government enables the Departments of Naval and Military Science to offer other inducements of salary, polo, uniforms and pleasant summer activities. All of these gestures are devised with the single purpose of detracting men from following their natural academic work. Yet in spite of these questionable methods of high pressure salesmanship, and the fact that those courses are not in accordance with the academic standards of Harvard University, Naval and Military Science are allowed to remain as part of the college curriculum. Founded as an extra curricular activity and included in the regular college courses only as a war measure, the inertia of the University administration has allowed these vestiges of former exigencies to remain too long after their usefulness has vanished.