The Universities and the Army

Abstract

THE proposals contained in the leading article in NATURE of April 8, that the raw material for the commissioned ranks should be university graduates rather than public-school boys, may be ideal, but it would have been more practicable in 1914 than it is at the present day. Under the existing pressure on the universities there is rather a risk of the Army candidate being squeezed out; there is not accommodation for all candidates for commissions to enter freely. For the moment we shall have to be content with a measure by which selected officers can be accepted at universities for specialised training not readily available elsewhere. Thus the Services can obtain that contact with living science which is so essential for them, and has been so often lacking in the past. This will require supplementing by courses within the fighting Services if proper preparation is to be made for the scientific aspects of the next war. At least at the various Staff colleges trained scientific workers must lecture, while selected officers should be sent to work in university laboratories. The present state of friendly co-operation must not be allowed to disappear.