Education: R.O.T.C.: Brass in the Ivy

More than at any time in U.S. peacetime history, the armed forces depend for their career officers not primarily on West Point and Annapolis, but on 350 civilian colleges and universities. Big new source of supply: the Reserve Officers Training Corps, which now has some 285,000 members—about one-fifth of the nation's male college population. This June 30,700 R.O.T.C. seniors will get commissions and fulfill their service obligations by going on active duty for at least two years.

This is in striking contrast to the pre-World War II R.O.T.C., which (as of 1939-40) had only...

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