School's Out

With a suddenness which stunned college presidents and students alike, the Army last week ordered 110,000 of its most promising young men out of school for assignment to active duty. Only student-soldiers left at their desks in the once huge Army Specialized Training Program were about 30,000 taking advanced courses in medicine, dentistry and engineering, and 5,000 pre-induction students including the 17-year-olds.

Set up to provide trained brains for a technician's war, the A.S.T.P. was halted by the superior necessities of full-scale operations. Inevitable casualties demanded immediate replacements. Selective Service had failed by 200,000 to meet the Army's expected total of 7,700,000 by last year's end. Rejections among the 18-and ig-year-olds ran to an amazing 25% -mostly for psychiatric reasons.*And the Army had another reason: fighting men in the field were not pleased at the thought of able-bodied brothers-inarms softly berthed in campus foxholes.

Navy and Marine Corps college programs, never on such a big scale, are not being curtailed, but sometimes speeded up. Many men who have seen active service with the fleet have been returned to school for further training during their advancement. Navy needs for officer material are still growing. Each ,of the 45,000 landing craft building this year, for example, requires at least one officer.,

While many a student-soldier could close his books with a grin at the prospect of active service, the colleges were grey with gloom. Those without Navy contracts or women students were hardest hit: the Army planned to reimburse colleges for the balance of its go-day terms, but faculties had been organized and paid for the academic year.

*Last week Selective Service reported 20.4% of rejections of draftees of all ages was on mental and nervous grounds, seven times the rate of World War I, twice the rate of the early part of World War II. So far 700,000 have been rejected.

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