MILITARY TRAINING CAMPS

In the February issue of the MAGAZINE was printed by request the report of the advisory committee of university presidents on the summer military instruction camps for students. The editor is now in receipt of rather more specific information sent out by the newly formed Training Camps Association. Since this should be of interest to many of the alumni, we reprint it here.

"The Military Training Camps Association of the United States is an organization formed by the merger in January 1916, of the Students' and the Business Men's organizations which had camps last summer at Plattsburgh, Ludington, Fort Sheridan, and at other places under the direction of the War Department. The joint organization will continue to have, from the educational standpoint, the advice of the University Presidents' Advisory Committee, which co-operated in the Students' training camps movement.

"Plans for the camps next summer are being worked out by the Association, which has established its main office at 31 Nassau Street, New York, with other branches at Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago and other points.

"It will be remembered that the first Summer Military Training Camps for Students were instituted in the summer of 1913, and were held in the East at Gettysburg, and in the West at the Presidio of Monterey, California. These were followed by students' camps in the summer of 1914 at Burlington, Vt., Ludington, Mich., Asheville, N. C., and the Presidio of Monterey, Cal., and in the summer of 1915 by students' camps at Plattsburgh, N. Y., Ludington, Mich., and the Presidio of San Francisco, Cal.

"In 1915 camps were established for Business Men at various points, the one held at Plattsburgh following the students' camps, being the largest.

"During the past autumn committees representing the students' and the business men's organizations, and the Advisory Committee of University Presidents, have been in conference as to the advisability of the formation of a joint organization, with the result that the students' and business men's organizations have been merged, forming The Military Training Camps Association of the United States, to be managed by a Governing Committee composed of representatives from the Advisory Committee of University Presidents, from the Business Men's Camps, held at Plattsburgh, and Fort Sheridan, and on the Pacific Coast, and from the students' camps.

"The Training Camps Association has established a permanent office at 31 Nassau Street, New York, and a large clerical force is now card-cataloging the names of all who attended the business men's camps and the students' camps heretofore held, and the names of all University and College alumni and students throughout the country so far as they can be obtained from college catalogs and alumni registers, and the names of all others who may apply for enrollment in the camps for next summer, including students in the graduating classes of high schools, and other schools rated as such, and the graduates of the same. When these catalogs are completed, full information will be sent out to all persons interested as to the camps to be held next summer with enrollment blanks to be signed by those desiring to attend. The present membership of the Association composed of all men who have attended these camps for the last three summers, numbers about 4100 men, and the indications are that the enrollment for the coming summer will run up into many thousands.

"The camps are essentially democratic and are open to all applicants of good moral character, physically qualified.

"Inquiries should be addressed to The Military Training Camps Association, 31 Nassau Street, New York."