NOTABLE EDITORIALS FROM THE TECH Publicity has never been a thing upon which Technology has laid great stress. The graduate has, in the past, gone out to work with a full knowledge that Technology would continue to perform its proper work to the fullest degree of its resources, mental and physical. The Institute has assumed that the graduate, following the training received, would find his proper place in world activities and comport himself as every Technology man should. Beyond such ties as were established through the TECHNOLOGY REVIEW, there seemed little need of further publicaton of the doings at the school or among the graduates. As to the public, the Institute has always adopted the policy that, as an educational institution, its duty lay in supplying the best that it could in its line of education for those who chose to take the work offered. When it was deemed wise or necessary to make a change, whether in addition of new work, new men, or new methods, such change was made. The fact of necessity for change being established, action was all that was needed to enable the Institute to serve to the fullest the purposes for which it existed. Such action called in no manner for an expression of opinion on the part of the general public, nor are such minor details, however important they may seem in their sphere of interest to any outsider other than the mere book-worm who can find interesting reading in a time-table. But the war came, and Technology, heretofore an isolated institution of learning, became suddenly a great national engineering school. Its alumni have dropped their normal pursuits to render service to their country, and the school has so broadened the field of its activity that its influence is vitally felt from coast to coast. So vast has been the development-and it is a development, not a change, that the normal channels of information have become clogged. Hence, from now on, the great news of Technology and its activities must find expression through the public press. It is not the foolish caper of the college boy nor the eccentricity of the sage that we would prate in bold type before the gaze of a yellow-journaled public. It is the big, almost overwhelming task that Technology has assumed and is carrying on successfully that we would present to an intelligent public in a sane, businesslike, intelligent way. To this end we hope the papers will coöperate with us, so that the public may learn that a real college is where big men do big things in a big way. THE INSTITUTE AND THE DRAFT Among the 687,000 who are to be drafted during the next few days, there will undoubtedly be included some Technology men. What will be the service they are called upon to do, rests with the government working through the exemption boards. If the government chooses, it can take trained engineers, or those with an engineering training partly completed in a school already designated by that government as the official training place for officers in the technical branches of the service, and place them in the ranks of infantry fighters in the trenches, where the knowledge and skill will be of negligible value. Or, it can, like a wise government, choose its men for the particular job which fits them. There are those who would applaud the first course of action as being democratic, -a blow against class distinction. Such a position would be justified were the sons of Technology trying to evade their duty and to shift the burden to other shoulders. But, fortunately, Technology men are far from unwilling to fight. When the time comes, they will be found in the forefront of the forces of the nation. They do not, however, feel that it is too much to ask of the government an opportunity to give the full service of which they are capable as engineers. They have acquired by hard labor and sacrifice a high degree of technical knowledge, a knowledge which experts predict will command a premium before the end of this war. If the government wishes to go about its task with real American efficiency and foresight it will not push these willing, trained men into positions of importance, but will rather take advantage now of every Technology man's scientific skill, and use him where he can give the best that is in him for his country. SELECTION FOR THE DRAFT One of the greatest revelations of the present war is the extent to which reliance for its actual conduct is placed not so much upon the man merely skilled in military manoeuvers as upon the man with the trained intellect. The fact that college training is the initial requirement of entry into many of the lines of war work is evidence of this condition. Through the developments resultant from the revolution in Russia, and various local movements, it is rapidly becoming evident that order, harmony, and consistent growth are dependent upon control by a united action upon the part of those possessed of a certain amount of higher intellectual training. It is essential that the future development of not only our country but the world at large be based upon the principle of control by intellectual and scientific expression, rather than upon the impulsive and spasmodic control of emotional self-expression. No government is stable whose enactments are subject to the uncertain and fluctuating wishes of mere temperamental or personal desire, whether such government parade under the name of "true democracy" or have its real title, "mob rule." To the end that the spirit of liberty and democracy now seizing the world be not diverted into the channels of self-centered interests, be they of capital or labor, party or person, it is essential that the man of trained intellect be not drawn indiscriminately into the army, only to leave a man far less capable than he to exert a greater power in the interest of the self-centered propagandist. The condition which is to prevail is yet to be revealed, but thus far the draft seems to have been thoroughly impartial in its selection of some of the best men training in our colleges and universities. It may be that the exemption boards are so constituted as to include in their personnel that type of men which is capable of recognizing the value of mere intellectual development. Our young college men may then be placed so that they may serve their country in the double capacity of war workers and active agents in the reconstruction of stable world conditions after the conflict. The Institute has done and is doing all in its power to impress the necessity of the recognition of this fact upon those in charge of the draft, and it is indeed our earnest hope that those alumni who have anything to do with the work of selection keep in mind the fact that without a majority of those so trained that their reason is greater than their desire, and their power of analysis greater than their response to emotionalism or personal appeal, our country will face an immediate future of confusion and strife till such time as our schools and colleges can again establish the proper balance and control. THE WALKER MEMORIAL The undergraduates make a willing sacrifice of the club home to the government It is peculiarly fitting that when the new Walker Memorial opens on the first of September it should be dedicated to the service of the government which General Walker served in war and peace with so much distinction. For years the undergraduates of the Institute have been looking forward to a social centre of their own which should be as commodious and elegant as those which other college men enjoy. Particularly during this last year, when the activities have existed cheerfully and efficiently in chicken-wire coops in the basement of the civil engineering building, and when the minor organizations have met where and when they might find a vacant room, the need for the Memorial has been still more greatly felt and the prospect of its speedy completion has been a welcome one. But there is no undergraduate, we believe, who will not feel that in the Institute's offer of the building for the use of young men not students of Technology but training for service there under government control, the essentially right thing has been done. The Institute will be crowded anyway and with the aviators, military and naval, taking up the room they occupy at present in buildings 1 and 2, the authorities would be seriously embarrassed for lecture and classrooms. But the Walker Memorial is large enough for any number of men the government may send. The large dining hall, the lounge rooms, and the great gymnasium will accommodate for sleeping and living purposes many more men than the government plans at present to send us. The kitchens, bakery, ice-plant and the like are already at work supplying food for the Institute restaurant. The Memorial will in itself be able to take care entirely of all the needs of the officers-to-be. Poolrooms, bowling alleys, a barber shop, even a rifle-range will cater to all the activities of man. And it seems certain that the building will be entirely ready for occupancy several weeks before the Institute itself re-opens. It is hoped that the undergraduates will not lack entirely the use of their new half-million dollar home. Their activities will be |