One Down, How Many to Go?

In spite of last night's Student Council resolution, no valid arguments have as yet been advanced to justify the general reduction of required athletics from four to three hours a week. The existing setup, which was approved by the Army when submitted by Athletic Director Bill Bingham and is duplicated in the Navy's V-1 program, has been overwhelmingly endorsed by those who have left Harvard for the armed forces since last spring. Basis for the Council's recommendation was the greatly-increased administrative work placed on the Dean's Office by the flow of exemption-requests pouring into University Hall, and a supposed need for making the program universal. But difficulties of administration should hardly stand in the way of the accepted benefits of the present program, and there is nothing to be gained by more universality of regulation.

Even under the accelerated program, there is time for a student carrying the heaviest course schedule, without any labs, to fit in four periods a week. Admittedly, it means war-time sacrifices of leisure hours. The present policy of excusing men whose afternoons are clogged with labs or time-consuming jobs should of course be continued. Individual "emergency cuts" are already provided for by permitting students to make up absences.

The problem finds its roots in the failure of the government to hand the colleges a specific definition of their part in the war effort. Until the time when an anachronistic Congress has either been reelected or repudiated, there is no prospect of such a blueprint. Like almost every other part of the universities' war effort, the details of the compulsory athletic program must be worked out by the individual institution. The decision that is made at Harvard should not be based on such a Student Council resolution motivated by difficulties of administration, though backed by members of the Dean's Office and the Hygiene Department. It should be founded on the major consideration of how best to train and prepare students for service.