NATIONAL SERVICE WHEN?
By DAVID THOMSON*
EVERY schoolboy who is going to a university is confronted— unless he is medically unfit for service—with a conflict of advice and inclinations as to whether he should do his national service before or after his university studies. Formally, by the elasticity of the Ministry of Labour's regulations, he is given a choice. In practice, he finds that most Oxford and Cambridge colleges and some of the civic universities cannot offer him admission until he has completed his service. Although by now the pressure of war-time veterans is ended, those colleges and universities which have not been able to expand greatly during the last two or three years have heavy commitments to students who have deferred entry until after service, so that something like a permanent time-lag of two years has set in; and even by slowly grafting-in an increasing proportion of students straight from school, it will be several years before these universities will be able to offer a schoolboy a free exercise of his option. To switch abruptly to a large intake direct from the schools would clearly sacrifice a whole age-group who would find, after service, all places filled by younger lads from school. No university contemplates such a policy. But there is considerable diversity of opinion, amongst both schoolmasters and university teachers, as to the advice that should be given to the increasing number of boys to whom a choice can be offered. What are the pros and cons of this important matter.
The boys and their parents seem, for the most part, to favour deferment of service. They urge that a break of some two years (for an eighteen-months period of service entails a two-year gap in most cases) seriously interferes with a boy's academic studies; that he will forget too much in two years; that he will be better equipped to meet the rigours of service life when he is three years older; and even that the requirements of service may be dropped or shortened three years hence. The services themselves favour deferment, and this does not appear to be entirely due to an inability to find enough useful work to occupy each year's recruitment. They plead that a qualified graduate is of more use to them, especially if he be a scientist or an engineer, and this is clearly a very important consideration. Some university officers and teachers likewise favour deferment of service, on the quite different grounds that a lad of eighteen exposed to the often demoralising conditions of service-life, especially in the forces of occupation in Europe or the Far East, is less able to resist them (and more liable to bring an undesirable quality to undergraduate life after service) than a man of twenty-one or more who has matured in the stabilising and character-forming environment of a university. These amount to a formidable array of arguments in favour of postponement.
But how valid are they? To the parents, it can be replied that a break of two years is less serious an interruption of studies than it may at first appear; that the essential values of a public school or secondary school education are not expunged in two years; that any- thing lost is more than offset by the gain of bringing a more mature and widely experienced personality to the rigours of academic study, and the advantage of having service finished instead of looming ahead; and that jobs will be easier to acquire immediately after graduation than immediately after demobilisation. To the Services it can be , replied that an unduly high proportion of N.C.O.'s or officers drawn from univerlity graduates might not be desirable in peace-time forces, and that for many of their purposes a man direct from a sixth form would be as useful as a graduate.
To the university teachers who deplore the demoralising forces of service life it can be replied that these, on present showing, have been somewhat exaggerated, even among the forces of occupation in Germany; that most of the men who "come up" after service seem never to regret having completed service first, and have nearly always brought to their sl"dies a spirit of earnestness and keenness which has been sharpened, rather than dulled, by a two-years' absence from
* Tutor of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
scholastic work. It would be a fallacy to apply too closely the experience gained from the war-veteran students, many of whom suffered an interruption of five or six years, to the post-war con- scripts. But the experience of teaching and examining several vintages of students who were considerably older than the pre-war under- graduate has left a very deep impression on many of our university teachers, and even experience of the post-war ex-service conscripts tends to endorse the view that most men gain, rather than lose, by beginning university courses with a more adult mind and a more hardship-tested character. In so far as an increasing number of undergraduates is likely to be drawn from schools othei than board- ing or residential schools, the experience of two years' absence from home and intimate mixing with contemporaries from all sections of society is in itself a useful preparation for advanced education.
Thus the whole matter depends on a highly complex and subtle balance of considerations, and the only honest and clear inference is that it would be foolish to be dogmatic in the advice given to any one schoolboy. To a great extent it is a personal matter, and any broad generalisation is questionable. The more the universities are able to offer a choice to their entrants, the more it seems likely that boys will tend to choose to defer service ; so at least the appeals of the services for fully qualified graduates will be satisfied. There will probably always be some, however, who choose to "get rid of service first," or who positively like service and welcome a brief respite from books and laboratories. In time, since individuals happily differ so much, a certain natural balance will be struck, and the problem will largely settle itself. Meanwhile a few more particular considerations should be takers into account.
The student of Classics appears to suffer more than most from a two-year gap between school and university. He gets—or feels that he gets—" too rusty" to tackle the Classics after service. He tends to change to Law or History or Economics. The medical student, who has generally been admitted direct from school because so few ex-service veterans were prepared to embark on the long medical training that the laboratories could not have been kept filled without taking students direct from school, remains something of a special case. Although he be recruited into the service medical corps after completion of his medical qualifications, he often feels that this is less valuable experience than he would gain in civilian work, and may often be well advised to free himself from service obligations before starting his professional training.
The advantage of getting a job and of starting his career immediately after graduation in the summer, at the normal time, instead of at whatever time he may be demobilised, remains a permanent consideration for the student of any subject ; and it is one which curiously few lads or parents seem to think of for them- selves. Finally, it is not, of course, a problem peculiar to university entrants, although it is only their dilemma which has been con- sidered here. It is a deep human problem affecting all young men, apprentices in industry and the rest, and it is important that employers, universities, Government and service departments alike should bring to it that elasticity of outlook and human understanding which can make so much difference to the personal happiness and long-range welfare of the rising generation.
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