Presidents' Week

When U. S. college presidents gathered last week in Pasadena, Calif, for their annual shoptalk, they had something new to talk about. Besides its old worries--Money Troubles, Social Security, Academic Freedom, What is a Liberal Education?--the Association of American Colleges had a new one: Conscription.

The lobbies buzzed with talk that impending military service had made undergraduates restless, uncertain whether they should continue in college. Almost to a man, the college presidents were for postponing students' military training until after their graduation. A Harvard spokesman, President James B. Conant's assistant, John Russell, complained that while defense factory hands were exempted from the draft, chemists-in-training, equally vital to defense, were not. Because they feared being called unpatriotic, delegates eventually adopted a compromise resolution: that Congress should amend the Selective Service Act to let a conscripted collegian finish his current academic year before starting service.

Forgetting their troubles the college presidents spent a day in Hollywood, were greeted by Mary Pickford, Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy (in cap & gown). Said their host, M. G. M.'s bumbling Louis B. Mayer: "After all, we're all in the same business." The presidents romped and hobnobbed with 50 cinema celebrities, went after autographs so eagerly that Southwestern's dour President Charles E. Diehl exclaimed in disgust: "Grown men acting like that!"

A rotund German refugee, now head of the Department of International Studies and Relations at University of London, named Reinhold Schairer had a sensational story to tell: A British committee had collected evidence that Soviet Russia has stationed Communist educators in strategic positions through Europe, primed to take over the universities with a new (Communist) educational plan when and if Germany collapses. Britain, as a counter move, plans to infiltrate continental schools with educators prepared to teach democracy. Already organized in the U. S. is a committee to help in this job, the U. S. Committee on Educational Reconstruction, headed by Dr. Frank Aydelotte, President of the Institute for Advanced Study, and financed by the Rockefeller Foundation.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.