Mohave County miner and our mineral wealth., 1919-07-26
bET(LEN1NTS MADE WITH COLLEGES WHO
 GAVE FOR THE WAR
From U. S.. Press Association
 Washington, D. c.

At the beginning of the war the
 educational institutions of the coun-
 try were placed in serious situation,
 as nearly the entire student body was
 included in the operations of the
 selective draft.
 The government, through the War
 Department, determined to utilize the
 existing colleges and schools, and accordingly entered into contracts
 with 686 institutions to furnish hous- Ing, subsistence and technical or ac-
 ademic training to members of the
 Student Army Training Corps. These contracts called for the training of 22S,99O student soldiers; and at the time of the signing of the armistice 171,S35 men had been inducted and were being cared for in these schools.
 On November 19 and 23 of last year the Secretary of War ordered the earliest possible demobilization of the Student Army Training Corps, and by Christmas the orders had been carried out and the student soldiers left the schools. The task of making settle ments with the schools was taken up immediately, and a report has been filed with the Committee on Educa- tional and Special Training within the past few days, by E. K. Hall, Business Director of the work. It is gratifying to note that nearly ten million dollars of claims were adjusted in practical ly six months, which record tends to disprove the common impression that up when the Government is a party to the transaction"
 An interesting feature of the re- port refers to the personnel of the Business Department, which though a voluntary corps of war workers, re- mained at their posts for mouths after peace was assured. MT. lIall says:
 "The personnel Sf the Business De- partment was recruited very largely during the latter part of September and the first half of October in the year of 1918. It was made up al- most entirely of men and women, who welcomed an oportunity for patriotic service, to assist in the mobilization of the enlarged army and to contrib ute their small share to the winning of the war. After the signing of the arYistice, and especially after the order demobilizing the Student army Training Corps, the chief incentive for service was removed and there \ was naturally the strongest kind of \ desire on the part of practically \ every member of the organization to \ go back to his own home and his \ own business. It was apparent, how ever, that if this were done and the task of making adjustments with the colleges were turned over to a new | organization unfamiliar with the sit uation, or to those departments of the Government which were handling the adjustments of commercial contracts, it would inevitably mean long drawn out delay in making the settlements, and would impose still further hard ships on the colleges, many of which were already in desperate straits.
 "In spite of the personal sacrifices involved every member of the organi- alty, remained with the organization until he had made his full contribu- K tion to the work which it was ob- X viously the duty of the Department to complete. F.
 "It was this spirit of loyalty and N the whole-hearted cooperation of the entire personnel of the Department which made possible the prompt and successful completion of the work" r,
 One group of the contracts with the institutions covered the K training in colleges and universities, k which started" their academic year in ( the falLbof 1918, and second group provided for a continuation and en- jargement of the vocational training which started in small way in the spring of 1918; schools and units hav- ing been added in increasing units during the summer.
 MT. Halls report tells the story of ] he settlement of the 686 contracts. On March 1, 245 institutions had filed their statements or claims, and it was | after June before the last of these