1. Realizing that one of the most urgent needs of the country in the present crisis will be the training of officers for military service, and that it is the peculiar duty of colleges and universities to contribute in supplying this need, we recommend that the several colleges and universities in the state establish one or more units of the Reserve Officers Training Corps, as provided in general order No. 49, including courses leading at the same time to a commission and to a college degree.
2. In order that the extraordinary burdens and sacrifices of war may be shared in just proportion by all the nation, and that the calamitous experiences of the past under the voluntary system may be avoided, it is our judgment that in the raising of the necessary military forces the principle of universal obligation to service be applied by a process of selective conscription.
3. That members in good standing of the graduating classes of the professional schools of the state who shall have been accepted for military service by the government be granted their degrees without special examination.
4. That members in good standing of the graduating classes in the undergraduate departments of the colleges and universities of the state who would normally be graduated in June, 1917, and who shall be accepted for military service by the government should be granted their degrees without special examination.
5. That members of the graduating classes in the high schools of the state who would normally be graduated in June, 1917, and who have been accepted for military service shall be granted their diplomas, and that the colleges of the state be requested to honor these diplomas for purposes of admission.
6. That college students in good standing pursuing medical preparatory courses who enlist or are called into military service before the completion of the college year be granted certificates of completion of their year without examination.
7. That absence from college or high school by reason of enlistment in military service shall not prejudice the award or the retention of university scholarships.
8. That while the immediate service which women may perform in connection with the war will be in medicine or nursing and other work for general public welfare, and that while the greatest service for which they may eventually be called will be the supplying of positions vacated by the enlisted men, we recommend to the United States government the appointment by the Council for National Defense of a commission which shall outline an appropriate policy for women students in our colleges, with respect both to their college studies and to their enlistment for national service.
9. That this board approve the plans of the National Research Council and proffer our hearty coöperation.
10. That students in colleges and universities of the state who are liable for military training under the military-training law be exempt from the training prescribed by the Military Training Commission if they pursue courses in military training under approved instruction at their respective institutions.
Further, that as there are numerous resources in both the elementary and the secondary schools of the state which can be used to advantage at this time,—among the most important of which resources are the use of high-school pupils for the farms and for necessary clerical and other work that can be done by pupils who remain in school, the use of teachers for summer work, the services possible through industrial and household-arts departments, and the enlistment of upper-grade children for home gardens,—the board adopts the following resolutions:
1. That the State Agricultural Department in conjunction with the State Education Department formulate a plan for enlisting and placing high-school boys upon the farms, for directing and supervising the work of such boys, for determining qualifications as to age and fitness, for determining compensation and school credit, and for the adjustment of any other problems connected with the safeguarding of these boys who enlist for farm service.
2. That the State Education Department secure through the necessary sources a statement of the needs that might be met through the industrial and household-arts departments and other resources of the schools herein stated, and transmit such a statement to the schools of the state, to the end that these resources may be used intelligently and through regularly constituted channels.
3. That the State Education Department consider the practicability of securing some provision by which during the summer vacation and at other times of the year boys 12 years of age or over may be employed if a certificate of proper working conditions can be furnished.
It is impracticable to outline even briefly all that the various colleges and institutes have contributed to war service. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is hardly mentioned in what follows, and yet it is conducting a score of activities of immediate emergency value. Drexel Institute has contributed not only courses but also its president, Doctor Godfrey, who is serving as a member of the National Council of Defense in special charge of war needs as met by education and science.
To name all the institutions which are serving in one way or another is to call the roll of nearly every college and technical institution in the country. To give here a brief account of what a few are doing will show the range of the activities and the nature of the service.
Early in May Columbia University inaugurated a series of emergency courses of a military, naval, and general nature arranged for the purpose of training students who desire to serve the national government in time of war. They were classified as intensive courses and were opened without restriction to all those who desired to be trained in any of the various subjects offered. These courses included military map making, field-service regulations, general telegraphy, radio telegraphy, camp sanitation, map reading and map interpretation, practical navigation, and electrical devices of the navy.
Harvard University has many achievements to her credit, for example: advanced training for selected officers under the leadership of six French officers; a cadet school for ensigns; a naval school for wireless operators; a course in orthopedic surgery; the furnishing of the medical personnel for four base hospital units; and war service by departments of dentistry, medicine, psychology, and foreign languages.
Iowa State College gave a six weeks' course in special military and military-engineering work. Regular two-year noncollegiate courses were offered electrical workers and stationary engineers, mechanical draftsmen and mechanics, structural draftsmen and building superintendents, surveyors and road makers.
At Cornell University all professors and instructors in the marine-engineering department and all the senior students of marine engineering were in either private or public shipyards on or before graduation day.
The University of Wisconsin, anticipating that a large number of persons who had been trained in the administration of stores would soon be needed in the civil section of the Quartermaster's Department, in the Ordnance Bureau of the War Department, and in the Quartermaster's Officers' Reserve Corps, decided to aid in training for these services by offering special courses in the classification and handling of stores for those departments.
This university also planned a summer session with courses in wireless telegraphy, first aid to the injured, Boy Scout movement in theory and practice, and gave a course of war lectures especially designed for teachers, and a course for Red Cross volunteers who wished to take part in civilian relief work. This last course was in coöperation with the Red Cross organization, which, as explained in another chapter, will have much to do with relieving families deprived of their natural heads. The men and women in this course studied the basis of family life, psychological and economic principles underlying bodily health, the resources of the state to preserve the family group, and methods of social service and friendly visiting.
Aviation schools for training candidates for the aviation corps were established at the University of California, Cornell University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Illinois, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, Princeton, and the University of Texas. The first navy aëronautic school has also been established recently at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.