The War years had a profound effect upon campus life. The departure of much of the school’s staff for wartime work required that the boys take over responsibility for much of the daily care of the school. Student monitors supervised student KP duty, waited on dining tables (previously the task of staff waitresses) and cleaned classrooms, halls, stairs and other public spaces. While they continued to be the ones to clear the hockey rink (which was then the Pond) the boys took over the tasks of mowing the campus grounds and harvesting fruit at local farms for the kitchen. In fact, so much work was done by the students in World War II that the school’s tuition dropped from $1,450 to $1,250.

Another wartime change was the accelerated graduation program, instituted in 1943, in which rising seniors took a summer semester so that they could graduate from Taft in February. Cruikshank felt strongly that the boys finish their secondary education before entering the military. Many faculty members also left Taft temporarily to join the war effort. At Vespers the headmaster would read the names of alumni killed in the line of service; in all there were 59.

Cruikshank’s great legacy was the expansion of the curriculum and the increase in academic standards at Taft. While student enrollment stayed fairly steady at 345 boys between 1930 and 1960, the faculty grew by 50%, the course selection by 200%, and many AP course were introduced. During the 1940s and early ’50s the number of student clubs exploded as well, owing in part to wartime advances in technology and skills, such as chemistry, navigation, radio, ski and outing. Debates with other New England prep school teams, especially arch rivals Choate and Hotchkiss in the Triangular Cup, continued to be popular.