Give Us the Blueprints V

It has been drilled into everyone that this is a total war, a people's war. Before we are victorious and can return to the ways of peace, each of us will have to shelve his earlier plans of life. This has been pounded home repeatedly, with the realistic reminder that such a state of concentrated effort does not yet exist.

The nation's student body is one group which has not been assimilated into the war effort. The college student is not concerned simply with "higher education" and draft-dodging. He has proved his capacity for an education and has received part of a course of training upon which the nation can capitalize. yet today he faces the war not knowing how best to do his bit. He possesses the locomotion but not the direction.

The college student will have a year or two before he is needed for action. Those years, an impressive total collectively, are not being used most effectively for the war effort. The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps are enticing him into the various Reserve plans with every lure known to the press-agent's art. In the shuffie, the physically disqualified man and the co-ed, anxious to serve, have both been ignored. It will require little planning to turn the technical student's training towards the war. Instead, it is the liberal arts concentrator who remains most confused, sensing that something is wrong in simply pursuing a course in the arts until he reaches draft age or graduates. Only a small minority knows where it can be of most service.

Each undergraduate's energy must be channeled where it will do the most good. Opportunities for military and civilian service, without competition, confusion, or delay. Aptitude tests and physical examinations should be made available by the War Manpower Board to every college student. A survey of manpower requirements for every phase of the war effort should be drawn up. The student must be given the opportunity to know where his abilities are needed and should have a chance to use his preparatory years to enhance his value to his country. This can not be done by the individual colleges, for the facts are inaccessible ordinate the entire college front. Government officials, those who are designing the war, must give the student the blueprints now, for if victory is to be won the student must help to forge it.