1. We recommend that the Research Board for National Security and the 

 Army and Navv find men who, before their induction and during their 

 service, have shown promise of scientific abiHty and that they be ordered, 

 by name, to dutv in the United States as students for training in science and 

 engineering of a grade and quafity available to civilians in peacetime. This 

 should be adopted as the considered policy of the armed services and no 

 desire of a commanding officer to retain a potential scientist for his useful- 

 ness on the spot should be allowed to interfere with the operation of the 

 policv. 



Merit should be the sole basis for the selection of these students and merit 

 alone should determine the number selected. We think that probably the 

 total would be no more than 100,000 and that number, following VE-day, 

 could not be militarilv significant. For building up the Nation's scientific 

 strength, however, that number would be very significant. If well selected 

 on their merits as students of science, these men would constitute the pre- 

 mium crop of future scientists and we know that the future of our country 

 in peace and war depends on that premium crop. 



Under this proposed plan, be it noted, there would be no disruption of 

 plans already made for the discharge of soldiers from the Army. While 

 students, their discharges would occur in accordance with the already estab- 

 lished rating scale. It would not do to propose that such a plan should be 

 done on a volunteer basis — that is, that personnel of the Army and Navy 

 should request orders to duty as students. It would not do because manv of 

 the best of them probablv would not request such orders, from feelings that 

 they would not wish to be put in the position of seeming to shirk their full 

 patriotic duty. 



2. The Armv has made plans for setting up in foreign countries, when and 

 where the military situation permits, courses of study for soldiers, including 

 courses in science and technology. These plans are all to the good. The 

 further important thing to ensure is that the courses shall be the best and 

 most up-to-date that can be given. Unless it is to do a disservice to the 

 soldiers taking its training, the Armed Forces Institute must be prepared 

 with instruction that is wholly up to date in its higher levels; but the fact 

 of the matter remains that since the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 

 the California Institute of Technology, the Ryerson Laboratory of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago, and others, cannot be moved abroad, the plan for Army 

 universities must be supplemented by what we have suggested in our first 

 proposal above. 



3. Public Law 346, Seventy-eighth Congress, commonly known as the GI 

 Bill of Rights, provides for the education of veterans of this war under certain 

 conditions, at the expense of the Federal Government. Among the returning 

 soldiers and sailors will be many with marked scientific talent which should 

 be developed, through further education, for the national good. However, 

 the 1 year of education which the law provides for essentially all veterans 

 clearly will not be enough to train a scientist nor in most instances to com- 

 plete training begun prior to entrv into the armed forces. The law makes 

 the amount of education bevond 1 year at Government expense depend on 

 length of service rather than on ability to profit from the education. 



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