er Major, R.H. Durkee. Five old residences belonging to the
University were transformed into barracks, while the still far from
completed Union was used as a mess hall. The laboratory facilities of
the Engineering College naturally proved inadequate for so large a
number, and temporary buildings sprang up rapidly in every open space
nearby, erected by the men in the detachments. In addition to the
technical training given these men, who were not, however, enrolled as
university students, various special courses were given in war aims
which proved of great value in furthering morale. This whole effort
proved so effective that the Government desired to make a contract for
the training of 2,800 men from October, 1918, through July, 1919; but
this was more than the University could care for, though it agreed to
take 1,140, including 60 telephone linemen, and 600 telephone
electricians.

The next step came in the establishment of the Students' Army Training
Corps in the fall of 1918. This was designed to correct the weaknesses,
revealed under the stress of war-time conditions, in the old R.O.T.C.,
which in most universities did not furnish really effective military
training for the emergency, particularly in the matter of discipline.
The passing of the draft law also threatened the very existence of many
of the private colleges and the plan to carry on university work and
military training, side by side, while the students were actually
inducted and under strict military discipline, seemed an ideal solution
of a most threatening problem. Michigan, therefore, in common with every
other college and university which could muster the necessary one
hundred students, became in effect a military academy with the opening
of the University in October, 1918, though of course there were many
students not enrolled in the S.A.T.C., particularly the women, and the
medical, engineering, and dental reserves who were completing their
courses. The total S.A.T.C. enlistment was 2,727, of whom 2,151 were
enrolled in the Army, and 586 in the Naval Training Corps; these were
entered as regular students in the University, while 2,247 more in
Section B, the army mechanics course, were not considered University
students.

Thus with the largest S.A.T.C. enrolment of any university in the
country, Michigan gladly devoted all her resources to the one supreme
aim of training soldiers. Practically every fraternity house was turned
over to the War Depar