Campus Martius

Delta Kappa Epsilon ("Deke") opened an ice-cream bar. Undergraduates strolled up & down Elm Street and to classes in knee-length shorts. The Class of 1045W (for war), biggest freshman class (1,059) in Yale history, sweated at the biggest freshman rally. In substance, if not in form, life at Yale was much as usual last week. The college took in its stride its first summer opening and a new "Yale Plan," which compelled the student body to join up for war service to the last man.

As 95% of all Yale's undergraduates registered for the summer session (a bigger proportion than at other Ivy-League colleges), a deputy of President Charles Seymour announced to them: "We are following the military concept that students are only loaned to universities in order to prepare them better for duty with the armed forces and industry." Faculty war counselors promptly went into a huddle with each student, signed him to a specific course of war training. Some 75% of the students elected enlistment in the Army, Navy or Marine Reserves. The rest chose to prepare for war jobs in industry.

Undergraduates were pleased with the plan because "most of us now feel that we have something lined up in the war effort." Yale had scored a clean beat on its fellow colleges. From Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox (Alma College '98) came a letter to President Seymour congratulating him on "Yale's assumption of leadership." Only sour note came from the Harvard Crimson. In an editorial headed "Big Men on Campus Martius," the Crimson charged that Yale men were being "high-pressured" into picking their war job prematurely. Said the Crimson: "The panicked speed with which all Yale men are being called to the colors adds little to a cause which requires clear thought instead of hysterical action."

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