Last Days of School

Students are resigned, determined, hopeful and bitter, in that order, but with very, very little of the latter. They know they have a job to do. They are willing to give their lives. There is no evasion, no protest. They are anxious to get all the schooling they can; but if war intervenes, to get the fighting over with and get back to civilization and books. They have confidence, great confidence, in themselves and their pals, that they can take care of their country and themselves in battle.

In this summary an observer spoke last week only for the University of Washington, in one of a dozen pre-commencement reports by TIME correspondents on the last days of school at U.S. colleges. But all other reports tallied. From the lately isolationist University of Wisconsin and traditionally indifferent Harvard to the party-loving University of Kansas, undergraduates were alike in calling this war a policing job. They mobilized for war far more deliberately than the hot-blooded undergraduates of 1917. But they mobilized to see it through.

University of Kansas. Bane of Kansas farmers, who call it the "country club," K.U. started off the school year with its usual pastimes of dancing, beering and cruising on Mount Oread in sleek convertible coupes. Since Dec. 7, collegiate life has grown earnest. With 10% of K.U.'s male students already enlisted or drafted, Navy "V" classes and R.O.T.C. have been packed. Biggest new academic course is "The World At War" (365 students).

The typical K.U. coed has undergone a big war change, too. Never noted for her earnestness about a career, she used to join a good sorority, date the field as freshman and sophomore, go steady with a well-heeled fraternity man in her junior year, get engaged as senior, marry him on graduation. This year she speeded up her routine. Engagements and marriages were tripled. Coeds organized a Coed Volunteer Corps, which puts on bond and conservation drives and has started a post-war scholarship fund for draftees.

University of Chicago. Though sometimes rather invidiously identified with "medievalism" since Robert Hutchins became president, U. of C. now resembles a Naval training station. There seem to be more gobs than students on the Midway. Enrollment is already down 12 1/2% (to 4,814), and it is predicted that "outsiders" (Naval and Army trainees, evening students sponsored by the U.S. Office of Education) will presently outnumber regular undergraduate students.

Yale. Bearish on futures in business and Wall Street, Yalemen don't expect to make much money any more. They foresee a vastly changed post-war world centered more & more in Washington. But they think there will still be a solid place for college men. Meanwhile, a "Yale Plan" has been worked out with Army & Navy whereby students may continue with their elected majors but add war-geared physics, math, electronics, etc. The entire student body is now obliged to take physical training three times a week under Yale Swimming and Olympic Coach Bob Kiphuth. In bull sessions, sex plays second fiddle to the Second Front.

University of Wisconsin. An inland home of isolationism before Pearl Harbor, Wisconsin has since doubled its R.O.T.C., organized the first university ski troop, even staged a night "commando" raid, with 100 men in blackface wading ashore from Lake Mendota to capture a cottage on the lower campus. The daily Cardinal has started a campaign to endow a chair to teach the causes & cures of war. Late this month the university will break a strict rule to give an honorary degree in absentia to General MacArthur, utilizing short wave.

University of Southern California. Over the stone archway entrance to Bovard Administration Building flaps a red-white-&-blue service flag with 1,300 stars to denote U.S.C.'s contribution to the fighting forces. Sorority girls who turned up their noses at privates a year ago will go necking with them now. Just after Pearl Harbor the prevailing attitude was "eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we drill"; in the first blackout last winter, U.S.C. fraternity men made merry chasing around sorority houses. Now they take blackouts seriously.

University of California at Los Angeles. Over 90% of U.C.L.A.'s fraternity men have signed up for active service. When one fraternity (Theta Chi) entertained an Army Air Corps recruiting officer, he broke up the "house" by taking 17 brothers away with him. The university's corps of air cadets are conspicuous for the gas masks slung over their shoulders. Students scramble for commissions in R.O.T.C.

Princeton. By August 1917, Princeton's senior class had sent 92% of its members to the colors; the campus turned into an armed camp as practically all classes came to a standstill. This year only 6% of the class of '42 (32 out of 523) have joined up. Speeding up courses instead of scrapping them, adding special training and keeping academic standards high, Princeton adheres seriously to the theory, approved by the Government, that education is a national resource of first importance. Courses have been added in Russian, Arabic, Japanese. Says one senior: "We'd much rather compare the performance of a P-4O against a Japanese Zero plane than discuss the pros & cons of Union Now or the eventual fate of the Axis."

Harvard. So rapidly did Harvard readjust itself in the three months after Pearl Harbor that this period became known as "The Hundred Days." Masters of understatement, Harvardians now frankly admit: "We are living for the war." Soldiers Field is a melee of officer training and physical training exertions. Army and Navy specialists, in uniform, number 2,000. President Conant and other professors commute so frequently to Washington that the New York, New Haven & Hartford R.R.'s Senator out of South Station is almost a Harvard Club car. In the last war there were 11,000 Harvardmen: the Alumni Association estimates that this one will draw 25,000. No "talent scouts" have appeared this year, as of old, from big U.S. corporations.

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