This great army, growing at the rate of a hundred thousand per month, nearly the whole of it composed of civilians who had been entirely lacking in military knowledge and training, without interest in martial affairs and, in large part, averse to the principle of warfare as a means of settling human disputes, had to be trained in the quickest possible time for participation in the greatest, the most shocking and the most scientific war of all history. The Regular Army and the National Guard together could furnish no more than 9,500 officers, a mere handful compared with the number needed. Beginning in May, 1917, four series of Officers’ Training Camps were held, each series lasting three months, at which men studied and drilled with grueling intensity twelve hours a day, fitting themselves for the work of training the Selective Service men who began to be gathered into the cantonments early in September. At these camps were trained, all told, 80,000 officers, from second lieutenants to colonels, although the higher commissions were granted only at the first two series because of the urgent need, at first, for officers of all grades. There were also several special training schools, one for colored officers of the line, and others in Porto Rico, Hawaii and the Philippines. Several thousand officers were trained and graduated also from Reserve Officers’ Training Corps units established at over a hundred colleges and universities. French and British officers and British non-coms were sent by their governments to the United States to aid by giving practical training out of their own experience and their assistance was of great value. After our own men began to go overseas and have training and experience at the front many of them were brought back for the higher importance of the instruction they could give. [Illustration: VIEW ACROSS ONE END OF A CANTONMENT THREE MONTHS AFTER ITS CONSTRUCTION WAS BEGUN] [Illustration: TRAINING A MACHINE GUN COMPANY] From the training camp schools of intensive study and drill many thousands of young men were assigned for work at the special officers’ training camps where officers were prepared for the specialized duties of the Signal, Engineer and Quartermasters Corps, and for coast and field artillery and machine gun work. Here also there were long hours and steady, close application. From these special training camps 60,000 officers were graduated. A shortened and intensified course at West Point greatly increased the number of its graduates ready for officers’ service with the army.