The End of WWI

With the end of World War I came the end of the Student Army Training Corps. The need for specially trained college students bound for the military was no longer immediate. The extensive bureaucratic network that was developed to support the administration of the SATC had to end as well, after half a year of intensive work. However, there were attempts made to salvage some of the effort that was put into the program--namely, the continuance of the War Issues Course. The letter on top is from Frank Aydelotte, the Director of the War Issues Course, dated November 30, 1918. He indicates that courses related to the War Issues Course, including "courses on problems of the War, the Peace Conference, and Reconstruction," will continue at several educational institutions after demobilization of the SATC. Written a few weeks later, on December 12, 1918, the bottom letter is from the District Director of the War Issues Course, R.P. Brooks. He states that the War Issues Course will continue to be available to all those institutions who are interested in teaching it. It also confirms that the government will no longer be involved in course supervision at universities with SATC units. With these two letters, written a couple of weeks apart, we see the connection between higher and lower levels of authority in bureaucracy. Aydelotte's letter was an official announcement sent to all SATC units throughout the country; Brooks's acted as a follow-up, providing a slightly more accessible contact point through which his district colleges could pursue the continuance of the War Issues Course if they wished. Although the success of the War Issues Course beyond that first semester is unknown, these efforts to save it speak, once again, to the value that the authorities and institutions placed on the SATC. Despite its brief existence, the goals of the program lived on in the form of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, which continues to thrive at college campuses across the nation today.