Hutchins Asks 18 Year Draft, No Volunteers

Declaring that the "teaching and training front" is in a state of chaos, Robert M. Hutchins, President of the University of Chicago, outlined a program for American education in this week's issue of the Saturday Evening Post. The article, entitled "Blueprint for American Education," called for modification of existing Reserve programs, payment of reserve officers while in college, and the immediate lowering of the draft age to eighteen, combined with the abolition of all volunteering.

The theory of Selective Service, that some national authority would determine what every individual was best qualified to do, has not been followed, Hutchins stated. Instead inter-service competition has lowered all Reserve requirements without regard to necessary qualifications. At the same time drives to get volunteers from college age groups raise doubts in the minds of all those told, on the one hand, to remain in college, and, on the other, to enlist now.

Economic Factors Involved

"In general, collegiate status means economic status," Hutchins stated. The problem then is one of meeting the "need of the armed forces for officers and of science and industry for trained men and women without turning the colleges into bird sanctuaries and without limiting their students to those upon whom fortune has showered its financial favors."

The first step in any such program is to eliminate the ambiguity in the college man's status by lowering the draft age to eighteen and abandoning volunteering. This would make it possible to place all men where they could best be used and to eliminate all students who do not belong in college, Hutchins stated.

Needs Must Be Filled

The Chicago president also called for a comprehensive survey of all manpower needs and for provisions to admit to college enough people to fill them. Such people should be put in a reserve and payed while in college, Hutchins stated.

According to the Hutchins plan, this manpower reservoir would pursue a liberal arts course for two years and then branch out into more specialized training. Those who had not maintained a minimum standard would then be subject to immediate draft, he said.