The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1918-10-24
Student Soldiers =.
By Frederick J. Haskin

ABOUT l0U, UUU StuGentS are now
gathered at $50 American colleges in
the uniform and under the discipline of
the Army, Navy and Marine Corps
About one-third as many are attending
the vocational schools under the same
status. Thus the Students Army
Training Corps is in successful opera
ton and it has already contributed ma
terial to the training camps, which is
the chief purpose it was organized to
serve.
This purpose does not seem to be
fully understood by the American
public. The training corps is criticized
by some who see it as refuge from the
harder uses of war for those who have
certain qualifications of education and
intelligence. 1t is hailed with JOY by
certain equally deluded persons who
believe it is intended primarily as a
step toward free higher education.
The men who have organized and are
directing the Students Army Training
Corps are anxious to correct both of
those impressions. They point out
that the corps will not keep any con-
siderable number of men out of the
ranks who would otherwise go into them
and that many of those who are induct-
ed into it will reach the front sooner
than if they had left the draft law take
its course. They further point out that
since the need for officer material is
much greater than could possibly be
supplied from the ranks the Students
Army Training Corps is a necessary
supplementary source of supply.
Neither is the chance for commits
sion denied to the man VINO enters the
vocational rather than the collegiate
section. The fact of the matter is that
every man who has it in him to make
an officer will have a wide opportunity
to do so before the new draft Army is
ready to take the field The Students
Army Training Corps is not designed to
favor the educated or any other class
| Neither is it primarily an educatinal
measure. 1t is a military measure,
made necessary by the impossibiity of
obtaining an adequate supply of officers,
without some such means of asserting
and shaping the heterogeneous mass
of human material which must be
organized into an Army between now
and spring.
The courses of the Students Army
Training Corps are divided into periods
of three months, called quarters. When
man enters one of the units the pre-
sumption is that he will remain at
least one quarter. if he is 20 years old.
If 10 he will probably remain two
quarters and if Is years old he will
probably remain three. But nothing is
promised, If he shows the proper
qualifications man may be sent to an
officers training camp, or if he proves
Enthusiastically unfit for a commission
may be sent to depot brigade within
short time. The shortage of officer
material has already made it necessary
ing camps. On the other hand, a man
having training or aptitude in certain
technical lines, needed by the Army and
Navy, may be retained in college for
several quarters. The number of these
will necessarily be very small. In
general, the man who enters a unit of
the Students Army Training Corps is
taking a shortest route to the front.
1t is evident that at the end of every
quarter a number of vacancies will oc.
cur in the institutions. The method of
filling these vacancies is just now being
worked out and cannot yet be presented
in detail
Some of the units are not yet full and
as the period of induction, which began
October l, has been extended until Oc-
tober 81, there is still an opportunity
for induction. Most of the large uni
versities are enrolled to capacity and
have been turning away applicants, but
some of the smaller and less well-known
ones have not yet obtained all the men
they can accommodate. The man who
wishes to enroll in one of these can OBJ
tain all information about them from
the nearest district educational d.
rector.
The fact that the large universities
have had more applicants than they
needed. while the small ones have, in
some cases, had difficulty in obtaining
the required 100, seems to be due to a
general belief that better opportunities
are offered by the large universities.
But the standard of instruction offered
will be approximately the same in all.
since it must come up to certain re-
quirements set by the government. The
same is true of the accommodations for
students.
The institutions which have units of
the vocational section of the Students