"They all agree that the building up of a huge war machine on the basis of compulsory military training would make for war and not for peace. Such military and naval establishments were the expressions of the fears and conflicts of the European nations and played a large part in bringing on the Great War. It is because our preparedness program is developing features dangerously skin to the militarism we enlisted to fight in 1917 that this pamphlet is sent forth. Today to an extent that most of us have never dreamed of, military training is being forced upon our young men in high school and college. Other large numbers, encouraged by the War Department, are voluntarily undertaking military training. That is to say, in this country large and increasing numbers of our students, the potential leaders of tomorrow, are being trained for war in such fashion that they accept the inevitability of conflict.

"Accompanying this tremendous in- crease in military education we find no evidence of any adequate instruction in 'American principles,' little instruction as to the cause of war, the part played by the foreign policy of a nation in bringing on the occasion for conflict, little instruction in regard to our own foreign policies, our-own wars, and the united efforts of many kinds now being made to eliminate the causes of war and to ensure the peaceful settlement of international disputes. We are doing little or nothing, in other words, to offset the militarization of the mind of our youth!

"Therefore, the action of the authorities of Boston University in abolishing compulsory military training, and of the Massachusetts high school principals who recorded their unqualified opposition to military drill for school boys in an overwhelming vote (approximately 150 to 9), are distinctly encouraging.

"We hope these actions mark the beginning of a concerted effort to abolish compulsory military training from every public school and college in Massachusetts.

"In this effort we call for the co-operation of every citizen in the state.

"Were this merely a question of military drill, as most men recall it from their own high school days, it would be one thing. We have here, however, a frank proposal to extend military training, compulsory so far as possible, and under the management and control of the War Department, to public schools and colleges throughout the United States. This at a time when, perhaps in all world history, it is most important to avoid stimulating the war spirit!

"Educators generally agree that military drill in schools performs no really useful function. Compulsory military training in colleges is based partly on a