Thoughts on Educational Priorities

T HE sudden urgencies of total war have affected profoundly the status and outlook of American colleges. In view of swift and far-reaching changes in industry, commerce, and the whole scheme of daily living, educational institutions could not be expected to carry on business as usual, even if they wished to do so. Complete detachment, rare in normal times, would be unthinkable in a crisis that threatens not only their accustomed routine but also their continued existence. Clearly, the time has come for a restatement of objectives and a revaluation of academic programs. In some respects compulsory educational reform suggests a stimulating and wholesome experience, regrettable, perhaps, for its haste, but, on the whole, beneficial. Almost every college teacher, at some time or other, has dreamed of an ideal university which would be different from the one that he knows best. As an educational reformer he easily imagines himself cutting off dead wood from the upper branches of the academic tree and clearing away the dense shrubbery which fringes its base. Workmanlike tree surgery, he feels, would include a little filling here and there, to check incipient hollowness or to prevent the spread of fungus growths. Unhappily, the analogy of the tree surgeon, fascinating as it is, does not offer a suitable procedure for the present situation. Reform is being dictated, not by someone's idea of perfection, but by the needs growing out of a national emergency. The program of a college will be judged by the extent of its contribution to the grim business of winning the war. That this program will necessarily contain a large proportion of technical subjects is evident. The basic training of students will point toward engineering in its ancient sense of a distinctly military profession. We sometimes forget that the term civil engineer was first used in order to designate a profession whose function was to carry out peacetime projects that were essentially constructive. The word engineer alone would have conveyed a different idea. Shakespeare's use of the word, for example, illustrates its earlier meaning. In Hamlet's reference to counter measures that he will take to protect

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