Curriculum for War

I have called this mass meeting of undergraduates to tell you about the University’s plans for adjusting its operations and program of study to the requirements of the war. Let us face calmly and confidently the fact that it is a war for national survival. In scope and strategy it is vastly different from any of the other major wars in which our country has previously engaged.

It is a war of survival calling for a strategy of world-wide dimensions. As never before it demands that all our national resources be marshalled to the single cause of victory. It means that every citizen must take his appropriate place in an effort of world dimensions. This fact justifies every step that our government has taken or contemplates in the conscription of men and materials. No one can tell today how far such conscription must ultimately extend. It is a highly technical war in respect to both military maneuvers and industrial production. I want you to understand this fact because it has considerable bearing on the function of the universities and the contributions expected from the men they are educating.

Science and technology have destroyed former limitations of time and space controlling international warfare. War is now a job of the entire population. It is “total war” and calls for a program which will utilize the resources of every citizen to the best advantage.

It is not enough therefore that each of us be willing to serve. Each of us must find out how he can serve best and when he can serve best. Everyone, civilians and uniformed forces alike, must be good soldiers, which means that each one must loyally fit into the scheme of organization which the government lays down. This does not mean that individual patriotism and initiative which make up the soul of a nation are not important. They are, today as in the past, the basic factors that will enable us to win through. But individual patriotism and initiative must be organized into a national program that will organize all the complex and inter-related factors involved in “total war” which are necessary for total victory. To this extent individual self-determination must be subordinated to national planning and national organization. This, I know, is the spirit in which you have been thinking about your responsibilities since the crucial events of a week ago yesterday. It is this spirit also that has governed the deliberation of the administration and faculty of the University in considering Princeton’s responsibilities to the nation. 

What I will tell you about our plans has been developed in close touch with high offiicals in Washington. Events have been moving too rapidly for any institution or individual to expect a detailed blueprint of what is going to happen during the next year, or even perhaps during the next month. But the broad outlines are fairly clear. Specific details of my remarks tonight are subject to change, but the fundamental principles I believe can be relied on for our guidance.

TO THE FINISH

One thing is abundantly clear. The national government expects that it will be a long war and a hard one. It does not expect to win this fight in the first round. We must therefore be careful to distinguish clearly between the immediate and the long-range programs. The immediate problems of military and naval policies are serious enough, but the aspect which concerns college students most directly relates to long-range policies. 

For example, the bill to register all able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 65 now before Congress is a long-range plan. This bill contemplates that all men between 19 and 45 will be liable to induction into military service. This does not mean, however, that all men between these ages will be called for military service immediately or very soon. The induction of men below twenty-one will probably not be resorted to for some time to come. There is still available for call a substantial reservoir of men between the ages of 21 and 36 who are already registered. The new registration will take time — so will classification. When men are inducted from the new groups it will be on a selective basis which will take into account the over-all needs of the nation and the specific contribution which each of us will best be able to make.

In the times ahead of us the nation will need more than ever before men of college training. For a college student to stop short what he is now doing because of the new registration act would be foolish. To throw overboard completely your present plans for continuing your education or merely to mark time in that education would be a detriment and not a help to the national cause. 

THE BEST TRAINING

In conversations in recent days with representatives of the various armed services we have had brought to us once more the principle I have been preaching all along; namely, that in general the best equipment you can have for military service is a college degree — or as much training toward a degree as you can get — and a sound physique. When the government calls you for military service, I repeat, a college education and a rugged physical condition are the chief assets which will gain recognition for you and enable you to contribute most directly to the nation’s cause.

I do not think I need elaborate upon the prime necessity of a sound and strong body. The University is preparing to introduce at the beginning of the second term an intensive program of physical conditioning for undergraduates. It will be on a voluntary basis and some undergraduates may not be able to take it because of the heavy demands of other programs, but I urge all who can to seize the opportunity to make yourselves physically fit for any opportunities that may come to you.

We do not plan to institute any program of foot drill. Military authorities advise against it as being unnecessary and wasteful of time which can better be devoted to other things. We hope to maintain as broad and strong a program of athletic sports as possible. While they may not provide all that many will require for their physical conditioning for service, we recognize the recreational and emotional advantages of a sports program. As the war progresses it will probably become necessary to modify radically our schedules of formal intercollegiate sports and to substitute informal intercollegiate competition for the highly organized schedules now in force. But we shall make these adjustments as and when they become necessary.

I have said that the best program which a college student can follow is to develop a rugged body and to continue the training of his mind. The authorities want young men with a college background, not so much for the specific information they have acquired, although this may often be extremely important, but because they have acquired habits of clear thinking and analysis which fits them to absorb quickly and accurately the new knowledge which military or naval service requires. The value of the trained men was demonstrated in the last war by the ability of college men to master new subjects quickly and thoroughly because their minds were alert. 

ACCELERATED PROGRAMS

Anyone who is working toward a college degree is by that very fact preparing himself for service. But as the Princetonian has pointed out and the members of the junior class have so clearly indicated, the University would not be justified in continuing that training on a peace-time basis. When industry has been told to go on a seven day week, when thousands are in the uniformed services, it is the duty of the University to provide accelerated programs by which with harder work and longer hours the advantages of a college education can be more quickly acquired. 

The University will therefore make available at once, on an optional basis, accelerated programs for juniors, sophomores and freshmen in all departments. These programs will be similar to those now in force for engineering and pre-medical students. They will require attendance at summer sessions and intensive work during the Reading Periods. Obviously, they will involve approximately a 20 percent increase in the work of the regular terms. They will involve the full amount of departmental courses and independent work because this aspect of our curriculum is the heart of a Princeton education. Some reduction in elective requirements may be necessary for students on accelerated programs. For example, a summer at a military training camp will displace one of the summer sessions at Princeton for those in the upperclass division of the R.O.T.C.

Undergraduates who take the accelerate programs will be able to complete the qualifications for their degrees at the following dates:

Juniors — End of the first term of next year

Sophomores — End of the Summer Session in 1943

Freshmen — In June, 1944.

For those under the accelerated programs the use of the Reading Period after mid-year examinations will be changed. Juniors will use the Reading Period for intensive work on their independent reading in order to be able to start work on their senior theses during the second term. Sophomores and freshmen will take intensive courses, meeting fifteen hours a week throughout the Reading Period, in the field of the student’s intended department. 

The normal course schedules will continue for those who do not elect the accelerated programs. 

The accelerated program has not been made compulsory for all, as some have proposed. Individual circumstances will dictate that some should not follow it.

EMERGENCY COURSES

The general considerations which I have discussed relating to the advantages of general college training do not mean of course that some technical training for specific national service may not be introduced into the curriculum to meet emergency needs. At the beginning of my remarks I stressed the fact that modern war is highly technical. Those who fight it in uniform or in industry must be drilled in the use of highly technical instruments. Much of this is best done at an Army training camp or a Naval training station or at special schools for advanced courses. But many men must have also in addition to a special skill in operation technical instruments a more fundamental understanding of the principles involved. In my judgment the fundamentals can generally be best taught by the universities.

Recent conversations with military and naval authorities in Washington not only confirm this judgment but reveal general areas in which the University may offer special courses which would not usually be included in a liberal arts program. On the basis of these conversations, committees of the faculty are now organizing a substantial number of emergency courses to be offered during the second term which will carry full credit towards graduation. The planning of these courses involves a great deal of thought and must be related to the developing policies at Washington. It is too early therefore to describe in detail all these courses, but the following examples will give you a general picture of the kind of emergency training we are working out:

A course in electronics to train men in the use of latest devices for the radio detection of aeroplanes. Both the Army Signal Corps and the Navy are going to require a great number of men trained in this field. Both coasts now need this protection.

A course in meterology, more comprehensive than that now offered in the Civil Aeronautics Authority program, of use to Army and Navy Air Corps pilots and navigators.

A course in navigation and meteorology and special courses in mathematics in preparation for service in the Navy or the Coast Guard. 

A course in aeronautical engineering to train technical specialists for the Army and Navy Air Corps and for defense industry. A Department of Aeronautical Engineering is in process of organization and additional courses will be offered next year.

A course in topography, map-reading and map-making and a course in ordnance and gunnery similar to those now given in the R.O.T.C., open to all students.

A course in industrial inspection techniques to train for the Ordnance Departments of the Army and Navy and for defense industries.

A course in civilian defense, including a study of explosive and incendiary bombs, communications, first aid, emergency health measures, and sanitation. This course will be of value not only for key men in civilian defense set-ups but should have collateral value for those who enter the Army or Navy.

A course in Army and Navy accounting and other military business procedures.

A course in military uses of photography. 

Intensive courses in German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Turkish and colloquial Arabic to train men as interpreters for the Army and Navy and for civilian agencies.

A course to train men of unusual superior linguistic ability in techniques of coding and decoding messages for use in the intelligence departments of the Army and Navy.

A course by the mathematics department in quick computation methods. This course has already been announced but it will be re-opened for additional elections. It is a fundamental course of great value to an officer in a technical branch of any of the armed forces.

Because of the importance of mathematics and physics in most branches of the Army and Navy, second term courses in these subjects will be opened up to students even if they have not taken the first term courses.

These are examples of the kind of emergency courses we are developing for the second term. Obviously it may be necessary to place limitations on enrollments in various courses if the demands should be in excess of available laboratory equipment, faculty personnel, and so forth. Every undergraduate will be eligible to take one of these emergency courses as an elective course and if his schedule permits, and the numbers are not too great, two.

We will send to each of you during the Christmas recess a more comprehensive list of emergency courses and a detailed description of each. At that time we will ask you to indicate on a card the emergency subjects in which you are most interested. This will not be a final election but it will help the various committees which will be preparing the courses to know the approximate demand which they can expect. After you have had a chance to think them over and to talk with your family, you will be given a further opportunity for consultation with the faculty at the end of the Christmas recess before you will be asked finally to file any changes in your schedule. 

I need hardly say that the usual fine of $5.00 for changing course schedules will in these cases be waived.

It is too early yet to announce final and specific plans for emergency courses beyond this college year. It may be that as the war develops some of the courses which we shall offer can be expanded to comprehensive programs leading directly to commissions, but in any case each one of them will have a direct bearing upon the individual’s usefulness when he is called into service, and a notation on one’s classification card to the effect that such a course has been completed should help a person to be selected for an officers’ candidate school after he has been inducted into the Army. 

In the case of any undergraduate who is called into service before he obtains his degree the University will grant a certificate setting forth the progress he has made towards his degree and describing clearly the instruction he has had of specific value for any branch of the armed services or for civilian service.

THE R.O.T.C

There are no indications today that the program of R.O.T.C. training in the colleges will be seriously modified in the near future. The government has been generous towards Princeton in permitting such a radical increase in the number of students electing the R.O.T.C. this year. While next year we shall probably not be permitted to increase the enrollments, we expect that the R.O.T.C. will be continued at its present size. Reference has already been made to the fact that students not enrolled in R.O.T.C. units will be permitted under our emergency program to elect certain basic subjects now included in the R.O.T.C. curriculum. Obviously such courses will not qualify directly for commissions as in the case of the regularly enrolled R.O.T.C. students.

Realizing that the seniors now enrolled in R.O.T.C. are to be commissioned so soon for active service, the University is making it possible for them to take two new courses in the second term which will be of direct technical assistance to them. One will deal with techniques of firing and the other will be concerned with additional laboratory and field work. The first will be substituted for the course in Military History ordinarily given the second term of senior year. The other course may be taken as an elective.

CIVIL AERONAUTICS

Since it was first organized, Princeton’s quota in the Civil Aeronautics has been filled to the limit. No definite decision has as yet been announced regarding the future of the Civil Aeronautics Authority program, but it is expected that it will be released to the public any hour. It is possible that it will be taken over by the Army Air Corps on an expanded basis. In whatever form it is continued, Princeton will ask for enlarged quotas. 

NAVAL TRAINING

Princeton has renewed an application which was made earlier for a Naval Training Unit. The Navy Department has not yet decided what its policy will be in respect to new units. If any are to be established we shall press vigorously for one at Princeton. On the other hand, plans for comprehensive naval training outside existing units may be adopted. When the University is informed as to what basic courses it may provide to prepare its students for naval commissions, we shall immediately incorporate them into our program. As above indicated, the University has organized courses in navigation and meteorology and is expanding its program in mathematics to meet the needs of naval training. 

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TIGER GATE: View from the West End of McCosh Hall, Showing Lockhart Hall with University Place Beyond. 

THE SENIORS

Now a special word to our seniors. Some of you who are subject to early call have already accelerated your programs in order to qualify for your degrees by the end of the first term. For all other seniors I wish to say that you will have first call on the special courses we are offering for the second term. If elections for any particular course are for any reason greater than can be accommodated, preference, other things being equal, will be given to seniors.

CAREFUL DELIBERATION NEEDED

I suggest that after this meeting unless you have a preceptorial engagement you return to your rooms and start thinking about your part in this program. And tomorrow and the rest of this week talk with the faculty about any questions you may have. See your underclass adviser or upperclass departmental representative who will be keeping longer office hours during this week. If he doesn’t know all the answers, he will find out for you. And if the questions relate to specific details of the program which cannot be answered at this moment we will still want you to ask them to guide us in our planning during the next several weeks. By the time you have returned from the recess we will have worked out the program in specific detail and will be in a position to advise definitely and finally in each individual case.

Meantime as you mull over the entire situation, try to check any tendency to think in terms of a hundred-yard sprint. It is wiser to think in terms of a cross-country race.

Remember that the best equipment you can muster for useful service is good physical condition and a college degree — or as large as fraction thereof as you can get — plus some specific training along the lines of your greatest capacities toward some definite need in the national program. 

BEWARE OF RUMORS

One word of caution. Beware of rumors. At times like these they fly thick and fast. You can count on us to let you know promptly of any developments in the government’s program of importance to you and of any changes that may at any time become necessary in the University’s operations. Do not, therefore, act on hearsay. Wait until you get it straight from headquarters.

And now one final word as to why I have emphasized throughout this talk the importance of fitting oneself into the national program and of preparing adequately for service to meet the national need. The day has arrived when a college student may have a higher duty than to follow his patriotic impulse to run and enlist. The great defect of democracies in the past has been said to be their inveterate habit of committing suicide. When challenged by totalitarian military power they have in times past first been prone to underestimate the danger, and second been unable to organize themselves to meet military tyrants.

To the assertions that democracies are always doomed to failure; that they always commit suicide. America enters a firm and confident denial. We are politically mature beyond any democracies of ancient times and we have a national talent for industrial organization and production so necessary for victory. The defense we are erecting to meet totalitarian systems may appear to be following the totalitarian pattern. But the resemblance is only superficial. As we are all fitted into the national pattern under the direction of the government we will naturally hold in abeyance as the emergency requires some of our traditional democratic practices, but we shall do so by a voluntary act of self-imposed discipline under the leadership of the government and not because of fear of punishment by the government. When I teel you that it may be your duty not to do the exciting and spectacular thing at the moment, but to prepare yourselves to fit into the government plan to which we must all conform, I want you to understand that while the government must plan for us and organize us we are not abandoning democracy in favor of totalitarianism. What we are doing is to perform an act of free association and voluntary co-operation springing from a free will desire to make our national strength count for the most. Only by so doing can a democracy organize its strength to preserve itself from the military power of totalitarianism and thus escape the fate of democracies of ancient times.

The patriotism and level-headedness which you have exhibited during the last ten days have made all of us in the administration and faculty very proud. We want to assure you that we are mindful of your strong desire to serve and that we will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to develop the means by which your desires and capacities can best be used in the national program. 

Together, we will write a creditable chapter in the annals of Princeton’s service to the nation in time of crisis. 

This article was originally published in the December 19, 1941 issue of PAW.