T
HE plans of the Anny and Navy for the utilization of colleges and universities have recently been announced. They are scarcely more, nor less, than might have been expected. Of course, we shall not find here any provision for industry or other civilian activities, since these plans are concerned with training for armed service. We must still look to Selective Service for such provision. On the whole, the situation is reasonable and much more promising than i t might have been. Educational institutions are not to be commandeered by the Services. While the general curriculum is to be dictated, the actual control of teaching and operation is in the hands of the colleges. The Army and Navy merely propose to send some hnndreds of their enlisted personnel to college, with all expenses paid. The Campus will be rather a different place--but so, also, will be the rest of the town. "Joe College" of the 1920's will be Private Joseph Winters or Corporal Giuseppe Marsolini. In the present outline chemistry has no stipulated place. Both the Anny and Navy refer to technical students of engineering, and the Navy mentions "science" as an element in its curriculum. It may be supposed, however, that when it comes to the interpretation of details "engineering" will be expanded to include the fields of chemistry and physics, as bas been the case with the original Engineering Defense Training pmgram. More recently, the War Manpower Commission, speaking for Selective Service, has announced an enlargement of the provisions for occupational deferment of students of chemistry in approved colleges and universities, making eligible all those who are within two years of the end of their training. This would evidently include undergraduates who entered college on "accelerated programs" last June. But deferments extend only to the end of the academic term and we fear that the uncertainty of subsequent renewal, on the one hand, and the lure of a uniform and active service, on the other, will lead many students to stop their training who ought to be kept at it. While Chairman McNutt has specifically urged all male university and college students to remain in school until called for military service, we feel that something more in the nature of a positive order should have been issued, as far as technical students are concerned. The abolition of voluntary enlistments will help
materially, when the order really becomes effective. Then it will be up to the Selective Service Boards to see that young men with scientific ability arq put and kept where these abilities can be made use of. It should not be necessary for such young men to become plaintiffs. We had hoped for the establishment of something like the "Professional Training Reserve," to which we referred in this column last March. This plan, first conceived and named by Professor H. S. Booth, of Western Reserve University, was also mentioned again in a recent editorial in Chemical Induslries. Perhaps i t will not be lost sight of entirely. of the most significant outcomes of the present 0NEshortage of man power is the increased utilization of woman power. This movement has been largely led by the aircraft industry, a large portion of which is now manned by women. A good evidence of the increasing technical employment of women is the enormous increase in the number of women enrolled in the courses given in the Engineering,Science, and Management War Training program, a proportion which has now reached twenty per cent of total enrolment. Many agencies and industries have specifically asked for women trained in this program. Behind all this is, of course, the fact that if women are to take an active part in the present emergency, they must be made ready for it in a hurry; there is not time for long courses of training. If millions of women are to be put into our trained labor r a n k s a s is planned for the next year-they must be made ready by short courses. The place of women in the chemical profession has been a rather orecarions one,. UD to the Dresent. Now. however, any woman who has'the least semblance of a chemical training can put i t to good use. Industries have indicated that they can use women who are familiar with the motions of the chemical laboratory and who have the skill and facility to operate standard chemical apparatus, even though they do not have the sound background of professional training. We may expect to see the development of short courses of trainkg leading to this limited degree of skill. Of course, those trained in this way will not be professional chemists, any more than those who are punching rivets in airplane wings are engineers. But they are needed, just the same. ~
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