296 
PSYCHOLOGY: R. M. YERKES 
sations in mental strength, the classification of men for the assistance of per- 
sonnel officers in the camps, and the indication of men of exceptional intelli- 
gence to be charged with special responsibility or sent to Officers' Training 
Camps, and as all reports of the inspector were favorable, the Surgeon General 
in December 1917 recommended to the Secretary of War the continuance 
and the extension of psychological examining to the entire army. This 
recommendation, after careful inquiry concerning the value of the work by 
the Training Committee of the War College Division of the General Staff, was 
approved by the Secretary of War who directed the Surgeon General to pre- 
pare a plan for the proper conduct of the proposed work. 
A comprehensive plan was promptly prepared by the Staff of the Section 
of Psychology, Division of Neurology, Psychiatry and Psychology. This plan 
provided for suitably trained personnel, special psychology building in each 
camp, and necessary apparatus and printed materials. It was fully approved 
by the Secretary of War, Jan. 19, 1918, and the Surgeon General was author- 
ized to create a Division of Psychology in his office, and to put the plan of 
psychological examining into effect. 
A school for military psychology was immediately organized in connection 
with the Medical Officers' Training Camp, Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, in 
which a maximum of 100 student officers and approximately 100 psycholo- 
gists enlisted in the Medical Corps could be trained simultaneously during a 
period of two months. This school was opened February 4 with Captain 
William S. Foster, San. C, N.A. as senior instructor. Between this date 
and July 1, 1918, approximately 70 officers of the Sanitary Corps and 250 
men enlisted in the Medical Corps were given special training in military 
psychology. 
Plans for suitable psychology buildings were prepared and duly submitted 
to the Quartermaster General. Subsequently the Equipment Committee 
of the General Staff disapproved the expenditure for these buildings pending 
Congressional appropriation for the purpose, and by special request of the 
Secretary of War, existing buildings were assigned for psychological examining 
in most of the divisional training camps. 
The necessary apparatus and printed materials for the examining of 500,000 
soldiers were speedily prepared, and during April and May, psychological 
examining staffs were organized in twenty-five National Army and National 
Guard camps. During the month of June additional apparatus and printed 
materials were manufactured for the examining of 1,000,000 soldiers. 
On July 1 1918, psychological examining was in progress in twenty-eight 
army camps and in three General Hospitals. Seventy-nine officers of the 
Sanitary Corps were on duty in these stations, and in the Division of Psy- 
chology, Surgeon General's Office. Approximately 100 non-commissioned 
officers and privates of the Medical Corps especially trained in military psy- 
chology had been assigned to duty in examining stations, and somewhat 
more than 100 were in training at the school of military psychology, 
