BURLESQUE OF SCIENCE

To make R.O.T.C. acceptable to colleges interested in learning and not in snappy uniforms, the War Department has lumped together an assortment of unrelated subjects and called the whole thing "Military Science." The label of "science" is supposed to make the study of war the peer of the legitimate sciences. Somehow the assumed title of science elevates the R.O.T.C. above mere drilled routine and places it in the society of real institutions of learning.

If once the cloak of academic dignity is ripped from Military Science I the result is strange. There is a dash of mathematics, in which errors of 30 per cent aren't considered at all. There is a hint of a rule of thumb psychology in the lectures on "leadership" and "discipline." There are long weeks spent in memorizing the names of the parts of out-of-date cannon and the labels of the bags of powder. There are detailed descriptions on the workings of everything from obsolete machine guns to automobiles.

Taken altogether, the result is supposed to be a science. R.O.T.C. conforms to no known definition of a Science, but nevertheless it is foisted on unsuspecting Freshmen as if it ranked with Engineering and Chemistry. Military Science is a causal collection of Engineering which belongs in a soldier's handbook, and it is time that the University labelled it as such.

Unfortunately the War Department is deeply immersed in hidebound tradition and takes far too long to use the results of modern inventions and apply them to practical use for the future. The next war will be totally unlike the last. Small field guns, toy cannons and pistol markmanship will be utterly useless, and the teaching of these subjects occupies more time in a valuable college curriculum than the average student ought to spend.