Commander Jerome Clarke Hunsaker, who had previously studied and then taught at the MIT School of Aeronautical Engineering, encouraged the Secretary of the Navy to establish the Navy's first ground school for pilot training at MIT. The first class of fifty student pilots arrived on 23 July 1917 for an eight-week training program covering electricity, signals, photography, seamanship, navigation, gunnery, aeronautic engines, theory of flight, and aircraft instruments. MIT provided training and quarters, exclusive of beds and bedding, at a cost per student of ten dollars per week for the first four weeks, and five dollars for succeeding weeks. New classes arrived at intervals of two weeks. The last of 34 classes graduated on 18 January 1919. Of 4,911 students enrolling in the ground school, 3,622 graduated qualified for preliminary flight training.