BEHIND THE FRONT

Twenty hours of drill are taken with each yearly dose of Military Science. This drill period is supposed to teach the practical handling of field artillery and, in addition, to instill vague qualities of "leadership and discipline." Twenty hours is an extremely short time in which to teach a single subject, yet the R.O.T.C. instructors have assigned to this period a dozen complicated and lengthy activities. The result is pitiful dabbling in each and success in none.

Each student is supposed to allot to Military Science drill ten afternoons a year. This scanty time is split up between horsemanship, foot drills working 75mm guns, and practice with miniature cannons. Too much attempted and nothing accomplished is indicative of the whole department, as the student has no time to learn any one subject well.

This superficial training is supposed to be sufficient to make a man a field artillery officer after he has completed a short session at a summer camp. A smattering of hygiene, first aid, signal and fire control, hippology, communications and military history is not thorough enough training to make a man a second lieutenant. Four easy, indeed snap, courses aren't big enough to handle all the necessary material. The result is that the R.O.T.C. graduate comes out at the end of the curriculum with a host of vague, half-correct generalities, which are worse than ignorance.

The department of military science should concentrate on only the major subjects of its present course and teach these fundamentals as thoroughly and as completely as possible. Every effort should be made to keep the course right up to date in the latest methods of warfare. Poison gas protection with reference to big cities should be carefully studied, defense agaisnt aerial attack and long range guns should also be included, as well as the military administration of hygienic measures against mass bacterial infection. Military Science should be studied with the future in view instead of the past.