Preface to a Voyage

(Ed. Note--The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters and only under special conditions, at the request of the writer will names be with-held.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The clipping from "The Socialist" coming at this late date, appears rather superfluous, but to your editorial on Military and Naval Science I take violent exception. Your pacifism is well calculated to please conservative professors of Social Ethics and the staid dowagers of Back Ray, but it is strictly not in accord with your manifestation of being liberal. A college, liberal in the finer sense, should include and encourage as many diversified subjects as its students will support. That militarism is not academic is true but neither is publishing a daily news paper for amusement and financial profit. If you are to be consistent in your ideals, then spend your spare time in Widener Library and the Museums.

You say that Military and Naval Science are "snap" courses indulged in by only the dull and lazy. That is not true although I admit that, they are not as difficult or exacting as most of the courses given at Harvard. This is made necessary by the fact that many men can take them only as a fifth or extra course because of the requirement of concentration and distribution. Furthermore, it is evident that the Government wants for its, Reserves not scholars of the upper rank lists, but men of character and ability in other fields.

I recognize and admire the benefits of peace, but I believe that in this time of disarmament and reduction of standing forces, the national security rests in a large and adequate Army and Naval Reserve.

The subjects studied in Military and Naval Science include many things useful to civilian life--mechanics, navigation, horsemanship, electricity, history, and innumerable other items connected with the land and sea. For my own part, I can say that in one short summer cruise I learned more about human nature and mankind in general than I ever expect to glean form the books, lectures, and conferences of Philosophy Ia.

If education is composed of only academic matter, then it is high time that I withdrew from the University and went down to South America to join a revolution. Eugene Du Bois '33