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It would seem inadvisable to train a man for an occupation which he can pursue only by use of specialized apparatus adapted to the individual motor limitations imposed by his deformity. While a badly crippled man may be taught to operate a lathe with special treadles or to run a typewriter with special paper feed and shifting mechanism, his employment opportunities will be precarious. It may be possible to secure for him one specific job which may be arranged for at the time he starts training. But if he cannot get along personally with his employer, if his family must move to another city, if his wages are not advanced as his product increases -- for these and a myriad other reasons, he may become practically unable to obtain other employment, and the value of his training will be thus nullified. Ingenuity should be directed rather to fitting crippled men to meet the demands of standard trades, in which there will be, not one or a dozen possible jobs, but thousands. Only thus can the man be made actually independent.

It is absolutely essential that training, if provided at all, be thorough. The pupils are men, not boys, and they cannot go out in the apprenticeship category, as do the graduates of regular trade schools -- and even in these the present-day standards of proficiency are high. If ill-trained men are graduated from the classes the results will not be fortuitous. Employers will be convinced that the theory of re-educating returned soldiers is unsound; the men will come to distrust the representations of prospective success which have been made to them. There will be, further, an unjustified disturbance of the labor market and its wage standards if a school turns out into a trade as professedly skilled operatives a crowd of undertrained and inexperienced men. Schools of re-education must not contribute to difficulties of this character.

In fact, in every respect, we must give the disabled soldier the best possible preparation for self-support. Let us discharge, to the highest degree, the nation's obligation to our wounded. Let us so act in this greatest of all wars as to mitigate the shame of their treatment in the past.