When the enrollee got adjusted to camp routine, he was interviewed by the educational adviser, who encouraged him to discuss his personal problems, if any, his family background, and his ambitions. He was apprised of the opportunities in camp and in the adjacent community for attending various classes and also of job activities that might be available to him. He was urged to avail himself of these opportunities although given to understand that participation in any of the educational programs was entirely voluntary. The educational adviser and the supervisory personnel would also encourage the enrollee to participate in recreational activities at camp. Most of the camps organized teams for basketball, baseball, and other sports and were equipped with such facilities as a library, recreation hall, and usually a little camp store, where the enrollee could get supplies or refreshments.

Because these camps were doing conservation work, the enrollee had a wonderful opportunity to learn about nature, particularly plant and animal life, and the supervisory personnel were happy to help him learn. There is the story about a CCC boy, stationed at a camp somewhere in the Southwest, who had been "raised on the sidewalks of New York" and had little experience with wildlife in its many forms. One day, when he brought a rattlesnake's rattle into camp and showed it around, his foreman anxiously asked how he got it. "Off a woim," he said casually. No doubt he was set straight.

After a young man had gone through his conditioning period, he was assigned to work projects which, so far as practicable, were related to his special interests. It is surprising how many of the men turned out to be excellent mechanics. In one of Director Fechner's reports he had a table entitled "The Number of CCC Enrollees Classified According to the Kind of Work which the Civilian Conservation Corps Service and Training Has Fit Them to Do in Private Employment." Under the general category of agriculture, fishery, and forestry, there were 2,085 trained in landscaping and as agriculture foremen, overseers, and farmers. There were 1,294 foresters, forest rangers, and timber cruisers. Under manufacturing and mechanical industry, specifically the building and hand trades, there were 153 blacksmiths, 1,600 carpenter's, 100 electricians, a few hundred machinists, 65 plumbers, and 1,323 other building and hand trades. There were over 2,000 brick and stone masons, over 3,000 foremen in building and general construction, over 2,700 machinists in automobile repair shops, and so on and on over several pages. There were 754 bakers, over 10,000 cooks, over 300 barbers, over 3,000 first-aid men, orderlies, and male nurses, over 5,500 shipping clerks, and over 3,500 stenographers and typists. I think this will give some idea of the human and educational values of the CCC over and above the work accomplished. The approach and attitude of all those associated with the CCC instilled confidence and a desire for excellence and progress.

A job that required learning new skills: CCC crew lining a drainage ditch with stones and cement.

Many long, hard hours of CCC work were devoted to protecting forested areas from forest and grass fires.

The CCC was always willing and ready to help in times of public need.

The success of the War Department and Labor Department in the vast initial CCC mobilization effort in turn placed a tremendous burden on the Department of Agriculture and Department of the Interior. In a very short period those departments, through their various bureaus, had to organize a work program for the CCC, decide where the camps were to be located, employ some 10,276 foremen (7 to a camp) and familiarize them with the work to be done, employ mechanics to take care of the equipment, and buy and assemble automotive equipment and tools so that the boys could be put to work when they arrived in camp. Looking back, I have often wondered how we ever accomplished it all. The burden was fairly equally divided among all the bureaus, and though some were assigned more camps than others, they also had a larger organization to start with. The bureaus were all suffering from cuts in personnel and funds in 1933, and each bureau had its own particular problems. The problems we were faced with in the Park Service, however, were almost insurmountable, especially since we had to establish from scratch a working relationship with the state park people.

After the big rush to get camps in operation by June 30, things began to settle down. There were 1,477 camps working in 39 states by that date, 245 under the Department of the Interior, 1,211 under the Department of Agriculture, and 21 on military reservations. Under agriculture there were 597 camps in national forests, 315 on state and private forest properties, and 299 on areas of other bureaus of the department. The U.S. Forest Service and its related areas in the state forests took the bulk of the camps, since they controlled a great deal more land than the national and state parks; moreover, the Forest Service had been aiding state forests for a number of years. The 245 Interior Department camps were distributed as follows: 70 in the national parks, 102 in state parks, and 73 with other bureaus of the department.