Tomorrow at 10 o'clock President James B. Conant '14 will speak on the Cambridge Common at exercises celebrating the one hundred sixty-ninth anniversary of the United States Army Chaplain Corps. Following the speech the students at Harvard's Chaplain School will be reviewed by Brigadier General Thomas E. Troland of Hartford, Connecticut.

7000 Army Chaplains

A history longer than this nation's existence lies behind the Army Chaplains Corps, for on July 29, 1775, the Continental Congress enacted legislation which recognized the status of the chaplains in the armed services by placing them on the pay-roll of the Continental Army. With the exception of a brief period in the early 1800's the chaplains have served continuously; in the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the first World War.

History of Chaplains

At the present time there are 7,000 chaplains on duty with the Army who serve in posts and stations all over the United States and in every overseas theatre of operations. A great majority of the chaplains on active duty today are graduates of the Chaplain School at Harvard which began classes on August 10, 1942 after transferring from Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.

The chaplains are all commissioned officers, all college and seminary graduates, and all clerics with from two to three years of practical experience in the ministry. They are prepared for active duty by a 28 day course given in the Semitic Museum and Andover Hall and nowhere else in the United States.