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The middle of 1915 found the enlarged and nationalized Committee on Provision organized and at work. Offices were provided by, and at, The Village of Happiness. The executive direction of the work was placed in the hands of the present writer; Alexander Johnson was continued as field secretary, and Miss Elizabeth S. Kite as field worker. Within a few months the offices of the Committee were removed to Philadelphia and Misses Helen F. Hill and Jane D. Griffith were added to the staff of field workers. The latter were augmented by other experienced and trained workers as the demands on the Committee grew.

The Training School, our Village of Happiness, now that its self-imposed extension work on behalf of the feeble-minded was on a truly national basis, was able at last to readjust its burden of responsibility without relinquishing it. The "spirit" was still alive, that missionary spirit we have seen at work through all its history. The National Committee on Provision merely opened up the wider field and provided the means for more effective work in arousing and consolidating public interest on behalf of that army of stragglers civilization inevitably drags in its progress, seemingly in greater and greater numbers.

The Training School created The Village of Happiness which was the germ from which has grown and developed, successively, those things we have heretofore narrated in the progress of our stories. With unselfish devotion to its ideals no effort has been too great, no progress too slow, nor its faith in its mission never so faint as to cause it to falter or lose hope. The National Committee on Provision, drawing its faith and hope and inspiration more largely from this source than from any other, labored in the field it was organized to serve for four years, from 1915 to 1919.

During those years it was a guiding and constructive influence in every state of the Union and abroad. It preached but one doctrine -- that of a better understanding of the feebleminded and larger and better provision for their care, with eternal emphasis on the need for scientific research in the field of prevention.

The Committee used its field staff of four experienced women in psychological surveys which covered large sections of a number of states where such work was needed and asked for. These surveys included counties, communities, schools and institutions. When opportunity offered, the field staff preached the gospel of the feeble-minded to clubs, associations and other groups of citizens. They always worked under the immediate direction of state or other officials, or organized groups of citizens. Intensive work of this nature and extensive speaking campaigns by the Field Secretary were carried on in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Delaware, District of Columbia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, South Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin. For four years this work, supplemented by correspondence, bulletins and other printed matter was prosecuted without let-up, on an annual budget for all purposes of twenty thousand dollars. Its expenses were kept within that amount; a remarkable record indeed!

The Committee early made efforts to secure cooperation of other welfare bodies and foundations. Effective and valuable cooperation was achieved with the United States Public Health Service through its then Surgeon-General Blue, who assigned several of his Assistant Surgeons-General for institutional and school surveys in Arkansas and Colorado, and as consultants with the Committee. The Eugenics Record Office also sent one of its field staff to assist in the surveys in Arkansas and Indiana. Cooperation of the United States Public Health Service continued up to the end of the Committee's activities in 1919. This was especially valuable after the United States entered the World War, with respect to the feeble-minded women and girls drawn to the vicinity of the concentration camps, where they became a menace to the health of the soldiers. The Committee's field workers were used in social and psychological investigations at several of these Camps for the Public Health Service.

We come now to one of the most valuable contributions made by the Committee on Provision to the Country's welfare. The contribution had, and continues to have, such far-reaching and beneficent results that it needs to be told in some detail for its historical value.

The United States declared war against Germany on April 6, 1917. This meant the immediate opening of training camps for three or four million men. No provision had been made for sifting from these immense masses of men those whose instability due to inferior intelligence would make them, not only of little value as soldiers, but a positive menace in the fighting lines.

Psychological examinations had already proven their value in schools, factories and institutions when given to individuals. It was impossible to think of attempting to apply these tests in this manner. Some more expeditious way had to be found at once if this sifting of four million men was to be accomplished. It would have taken years, a lot of them, employing all the competent psychologists in the country, to have done this in the usual way. It had to be done within comparatively few months.