ssion
on Training-Camp Activities to the Navy became clearer as the indoor
programmes, which were organized by Commissioner Camp and his
lieutenants, the athletic directors, were carried out. Boxing,
wrestling, swimming, hockey, basket-ball, and other athletic instructors
were appointed to develop every kind of indoor sport until there were no
nights when, in the large auditoriums of the navy stations, some
programme of winter sport was not being given for the entertainment of
the thousands of young men in camp. Mass sports were favored, the
general rule being laid down that the chief value of every game lay in
accordance with its ability to attract a larger or a smaller number of
participants or spectators.

Among the sports which were tried, boxing proved its value as the chief.
Attracting crowds limited only by the size of the auditoriums, the
boxing-bouts which were held, usually semi-weekly in all the stations,
were a most diverting feature of winter life in camp. One reason for
their popularity can be directly traced to their enforced use in the
physical training of the stations. Lending themselves ideally to mass
instruction, the boxing exercises were taught to classes usually
numbering between 150 and 200 persons, and the fact that every marine
studied boxing contributed to the size and the interest of the crowds
that packed the ringsides at the frequent bouts.

The teaching of boxing was also emphasized for its life-saving value in
a military sense. The maxim is taught that "every move of the boxer is a
corresponding move by the bayonet-fighter." Thus, the "jab" corresponds
to the "lunge," and the "counter" to the "parry." To illustrate this
boxing instruction, and to apply it to bayonet-drill, a set of admirable
moving-pictures was made, such clever pugilists as Johnnie Kilbane,
Bennie Leonard, Kid McCoy, and Jim Corbett posing for the boxing, and
Captain Donovan, the eminent English bayonet instructor, for the bayonet
films, which were exhibited for instruction purposes in every navy
station. Boxing tournaments, station championships, and army-navy
championship bouts were given with crowded houses everywhere.

Early in the winter Commissioner Camp gave directions for standardized
sets of instruction in both boxing and wrestling, and as a result, in
every camp in the country the groups of navy men were taught the same
methods of rudimentary boxing for their value in a military sense, as
well as their value