Higher Education and the War: Compression of Courses due to War May Be a Challenge to Academic Reconstruction.
Higher education of any kind, but particularly that which has no specific vocational aim, is always threatened in time of war. Colleges and universities in this country, with the memory of 1917-19 still fresh in mind, have realized since August, 1939, that their habitsperhaps even their existence in many cases-would be threatened, and that they would have to make drastic readjustments to increase their present usefulness and to help guarantee their survival. The problems of adjustment and survival are even more acute for liberal studies in the larger framework of the university or for the liberal college itself than for higher education as a whole. A review of the public statements of educators and the announced plans and policies of institutions during this period shows everything from complacency to alarm. The main tendency seems, however, to have been a development from the former toward the latter state of mind. I mark three stages in this process: the peace period, which in this country extended beyond the outbreak of war in Europe; the defense period, which lasted about two years and is still with us in the dormant judgment of certain groups; and the war era, which started for most of us on December 7 last.