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Rol� of the University in Re-Arming Democracy
A MONG the nation's greatest sinews of war are its
universities and colleges. In every war we have fought
they have supplied the core of trained, imaginative
and self-reliant leaders. As war have become more
and more mechanized and technological, the institutions
of higher education have provided the research
facilities from which have come new knowledge, techniques
and implement . Their campuse have been
taken over by military agencie for training purposes.
Their staffs have been drafted for national service in
many critical areas of war production, regulation, reearch
and military service.
From them, too, have come year after year a new
generation of young people keenly aware of their
democratic liberties, devoted to a free society and
morally prepared to preserve our western ideals of
human dignity. The universities have prepared for
peace as they have fought for victory.
Today, a always before, education is deteJ.:mined
that the nation's defense shall have first priority on its
human and physical resources. No educator would for
a moment consider the selfish interest of any institution
before that of his country. As patriots, moreover, the
leaders of our univer ities and colleges must assume
full responsibility for the role which higher education
is permitted to fill in the nation's defense. They cannot
stand aside silently while the fate of higher education
is decided by military and governmental personnel. It
i their sacred duty to see that an indispensable resource
is wisely used.
Our conviction is axiomatic. We must not interrupt
now or later an adequate flow of trained speciali ts
from our class rooms and laboratories. To do this may
be to invite national disaster. If we must fight a war,
we cannot carry on to victory by throwing masses of
manpower into battle but by applying science, technology
and superior management to the enemy's defeat.
In World War II, the fundamental sciences
which made possible the atom bomb, radar, the photographic
and reconnaisance equipment for night-flying,
and proximity fuses, came largely from university
laboratories. The men and women who produced the
new knowledge were university-trained scientists,
chemists, physicists, engineers, mathematicians, bacteri-
By Provost DONALD W. GILBERT
ologists, psychologists and others. They were often men
and women in their twenties and early thirties. The
same was true of those who administered our governmental
agencie : economists, political scientists, statisticians,
accountants, historians. It wa true also of
many of our outstanding military leaders. They were
young men trained in our colleges and universities for
leadership in doing an indispensable war-time job.
Without their ervices, victory would have been longer
delayed and much more expensive.
Consider a few names well-known at this University:
Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, only 40 when called to
M.LT. to head up the famous Radiation Laboratory.
Under him was 28-year-old Dr. Joseph B. Platt, now
on leave from the department of physics to serve the
Atomic Energy Commi sion. Professor Robert Marshak
at 28, and other young physicists served at Oak
Ridge or Los Alamos. In OPA at 42 was Professor
William E. Dunkman and in the Special Audits Division
of the Army Air Force, Lt. Co1. (now Graduate
Dean) Frank P. Smith, then 38. Among a more mature
group at the very forefront of research for war
were Professor W. Albert Noyes Jr., Professor Wallace
O. Fenn, Professor Brian O'Brien and many other
members of the University staff. Suppose at an earlier
time the university training of these men had been
stopped to enable them to put on a uniform and carry
a bazooka.
Another principle upon which educators mu t insist
is that after their training has been completed, all our
youth who are physically and mentally equipped for
some productive ervice shall be fitted into the national
effort in ways which utilize their special training and
a,bilities. This allocation of manpower should be directed
by a civilian agency directly responsible to the
President. We cannot depend upon the military agencies,
including Selective Service, to perform this task.
We cannot afford in this crisis to assign a specialist in
tropical diseases to a post in Alaska nor to attach an
expert in metallurgy to a paratrooper unit. Manpower
is too scarce to misuse.
If these principles are sound, the so-called Conant
Plan must stand discredited. As the reader will recall,
President Conant of Harvard University has proposed
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