"Education for Victory": The High School Victory Corps and Curricular Adaptation during World War II
1979; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 19; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/368053
ISSN1748-5959
Autores Tópico(s)Military, Security, and Education Studies
ResumoA SENSE of urgency gripped educators and federal government officials in summer of 1942. Word of imminent lowering of draft age meant that little time would remain between a boy's graduation from high school and his induction into armed forces. In July, Robert A. Lovett, Assistant Secretary of War for Air, advised John W. Studebaker, U.S. Commissioner of Education, that the need for pre-flight training and physical conditioning is every day become more apparent. In September, an officer from Navy Department warned that country could not afford to lose any time in toughening and training all high school youth. (1) Government estimates forecast that 80 percent of nation's 1,300,000 high school boys between 16 and 18 would enter armed forces shortly after graduation. The 20 percent physically unsuited for military, and many girls, likely would enter industrial work and essential community occupations. Consequently, Paul McNutt, Director of War Manpower Commission, added his voice to chorus asking that adolescents in schools compose a trained reserve. (2) Hurried plans to that end took shape within U.S. Office of Education as hot summer weeks passed. Would it not be inefficient and even inhumane, federal planners thought, not to attempt to prepare youth for what lay ahead? Providing them with an additional impetus were anxious educators who since Pearl Harbor had filled mail baskets at War Department and Office of Education with queries about how best to prepare youth for armed forces, and who had worried about prevalence of a restless mood in classroom. Concentration there proved difficult when it seemed plain to students that thrilling affairs were happening now, outside school walls. As a student in Indianapolis declared in a burst of youthful bravado, merely
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