Under these conditions the work of the Navy Commission was particularly timely and important, and that of Mr. Camp was of conspicuous value through the physical training and mental stimulus which it provided for patriotic, yet half homesick young Americans, from whom not only material comfort and luxury, but entertainment of all kinds, including recreational sport, had been taken. Mr. Camp defined the scope of the Athletic Department of the Commission as follows, in taking up his duties: "Our problem is to provide athletics for the men in order to duplicate as nearly as possible the home environment, produce physical fitness with high vitality, and in this we feel that we shall have the most generous and whole-souled co-operation from the Y.M.C.A., the Knights of Columbus, the War Camp Community Service, and all the agencies that are established in and about the camps." Launching the movement to "duplicate home conditions" in recreational sport, Mr. Camp appointed athletic directors in the largest districts during the fall, and in every one the programme of seasonal sport was carried out, comparable in extent and quality with that which every enlisted man in the stations would have enjoyed as participant or spectator in his native city or town, school or college, had he not entered military service. The athletic directors who were chosen were, in every case, experienced organizers of all-round sports, and several of them were former college coaches or star athletes. In the First District at Boston, George V. Brown, for thirteen years athletic organizer for the Boston Athletic Association, was named; in the Second at Newport, Doctor William T. Bull, the former Yale football coach and medical examiner; in the Third, Frank S. Bergin, a former Princeton football-player; in the Fourth, at League Island, Franklin T. McCracken, an athletic organizer of Philadelphia; and at the Cape May Station Harry T. McGrath, of Philadelphia, an all-round athlete. In the Fifth District, Doctor Charles M. Wharton, of Philadelphia, a prominent neurologist and University of Pennsylvania football coach, took charge late in the fall, resigning in April, 1918, to become field-secretary of the Navy Commission on Training Camp Activities, and being succeeded by Louis A. Young, of Philadelphia, a former University of Pennsylvania football-player, captain, and all-round athlete. In the Sixth District, at Charleston, S.C., Walter D. Powell, a former University of Wisconsin football-player, and later athletic director at Western Reserve University, was placed in charge of the programme, and at the Great Lakes Station, Herman P. Olcott, who had been football coach at Yale and athletic director at the University of Kansas, began his work in October.