Blurred Blueprints

Politics-as-usual has invaded the college front. A long and imposing title has served only to trip Purdue President Elliott's committee into the bog of bureaucratic compromise, for the report just presented to the War Manpower Commission only repeats last year's worn generalities with a promise of better things to come. Designed to hurt no feelings, the report is remiss largely in what it omits. Even as a sketchy outline for more specific blueprints, McNutt's ten point program fails to strike at most of the basic evils in the current college muddle.

Stating that all college students must prepare for active participation in the war effort and that all able bodied men are destined for the armed forces, the report merely reemphasizes what every college student has known since Pearl Harbor. The accelerated stream of draft questionnaires pouring into college mail boxes during recent weeks is a far more visible storm signal than the report's statement that it is impossible to guarantee a complete course of study to any student. Passing responsibility from committee to committee, the report features few concrete proposals.

No plan of Federal subsidy to institutions is contemplated except occasional scholarships to students undertaking advanced technical training. College enrollments will fall while more than 40,000 officer candidates each year are denied the college education vital to their training. Inter-service competition in the nation's college is, apparently, to continue, for the report never considers an over-all scheme for procurement of military and civilian personnel. Meanwhile deferments grow longer as the services strive to fill uncoordinated quotas.

The colleges have been waiting too long to be shoved aside with instructions to prepare themselves "to readjust their instructional programs and procedures so as to enable them promptly and efficiently to meet the new and varying needs of the war." Efficient flexibility cannot be achieved so long as the colleges must divide their energies between a business-as-usual program at the under graduate level and an all-out training of military personnel with the balance of their facilities. Efficient training cannot start until the catch-as-catch can system of undergraduate deferment is ended. Meanwhile Paul McNutt's efforts to step on no toes may gain him the 1944 Democratic nomination, but it will not unravel the college snarl.