Education: No Place to Live

In Independence, Mo., last week, Bess and Margaret Truman turned out to see it. The owner of the biggest department store in town had thought up an ideal going-away gift for his newly married daughter and son-in-law: a deluxe, $2,500 trailer to solve their housing problem at the University of Missouri.

Collegians Arthur and Ellen Whitman, in their 12 ft. by 25 ft. trailer, with hot and cold air, rows of bookshelves and murals in all three rooms, will have the prize housing package on the campus. But 300 other student families at Missouri will also live in trailers, parked on an abandoned golf course and two lots. Missouri, bulging with 10,000 students instead of its prewar 6,000, last week postponed the opening of college until enough barracks could be knocked down at Fort Leonard Wood and transplanted 96 miles to the campus.