Mass meetings have been held, prominent men have spoken and written, the Student Council has held an ambitious "Preparedness Week," and now the campaign for Plattsburg enlistments is over. Today is the last time undergraduates may enroll for the summer camps, the last opportunity they will have to announce publicly that they are willing to serve their country in time of need.

In another column the CRIMSON prints an article by one of the principal backers of the summer camp idea, Colonel Roosevelt. "These camps," he says, "are the entering wedge for a system of universal and obligatory military training for universal and obligatory military service." The word "obligatory" always has and probably always will irritate certain kinds of American citizens, the flag-waving, "land-of-the-free" singing kind. To them it savors of imperialism, largely because the most imperialistic of all nations has obligatory military training.

But this is too serious a time for quibbling over words. We face a situation which may at any moment become acute. And we are totally unprepared.

"The obligation to render military service to the country rests upon all citizens, share and share alike, each according to the best of his ability." College men are needed to serve as officers and the summer camps are their training schools. America is "the home of the brave"; but bravery and ignorance cannot compete with knowledge and the business end of a gun. Harvard today leads in total enlistments and Harvard must continue and increase this lead. It is only through training, obligatory if need be, but serious training at any rate, that the colleges as a whole and Harvard in particular can further the great scheme of keeping America "the land of the free," and making it "the home of the prepared."