Development battalions were established in nearly all the cantonments and did a good work in raising the efficiency of some of the men of the army by helping them to reach better physical condition. To these battalions were sent men who developed minor physical defects and the men sometimes received from the local boards who fell short of the physical standards set by the army. Medical treatment, courses of physical training and, if necessary, surgical operations brought many of them to so much better bodily condition that they could undertake limited service. Many were sent to the forests of the Northwest as part of the regiment that did most necessary work in helping to get out spruce lumber for airplane construction. Others were prepared for clerical and semi-civilian work in the army, thus releasing for active service those who had had it in charge. A goodly number improved so much under treatment that they were enabled to undertake active army service. All told, about 250,000 men passed through the development battalions, of whom nearly half were made fit for duty in either the first, second or third class. Educational work was also carried on in the battalions and many who were either illiterate or had had very little schooling received elementary instruction from former school teachers, of whom there were many in the ranks. Short talks on the duties of citizenship, phases of American history, public questions, and the causes and progress of the war and the encouragement of discussion broadened the outlook and stimulated the minds of the men. The necessity of organizing and training a huge army in a few months made equally necessary a revolution in some army methods, a revolution that was brought about by the Committee on the Classification of Personnel appointed early in the war. For most of its work, which constantly broadened and became more and more important, it had no precedents, for, except a little experimenting in the British army, nothing like it had ever been attempted before. In scope and function and purpose it was one of those bold innovations upon army traditions and methods which the Secretary of War introduced into the training of this new army of democracy, with results so successful and important that when the complete story of them is known it will be seen that they put a new spirit into military training and were in no small measure responsible for the splendid record made by the American army.