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The organization of re-education has varied in the different belligerent countries. In France the first school was started by a municipality, and other schools, in sequence, by an employer's association, a department, or state, a charitable organization, a trade union, and various other organizations. In fact, there exist today schools under almost every type of administration. The result is that the work varies widely. If you go to one city you will find the courses of a certain length, and if you go to another city you will find that they are only half as long -- or twice as long. The result is that the advantages of the French soldier largely depend on how lucky he was in picking out a place of residence before the war. This is in some ways unfortunate and gives men in some localities a better chance than the men in others. The type of work varies tremendously, the standards being different in practically every school. The French saw the difficulty of this and have founded a National Office for War Cripples. That office endeavors to standardize the work but it has no real authority except in the control it exerts in the award of subsidies to some school. The office requests the schools to standardize, and sends out questionnaires, but does not get much further than that.

England's experience holds for us a lesson by which we have profited. In this work of re-educating the disabled, England found herself in no worse situation than any other country, although without any provision at all. The work did not start early. A great many of the disabled soldiers in the first year of the war were discharged, at a time when there were only two charitable institutions to which they could turn. These two did their best to meet the situation, but it was a bigger job than any charitable organization ever undertook before, and they were not able to handle the situation. The government stepped in and formed a statutory committee and gave that committee some funds, expecting further funds to be supplied by the charitably disposed public. But the British public did not consent to this and said to Parliament, "This is a national job. The soldier disabled in the service of Britain should certainly be taken care of at the expense of the nation." That was where the job belonged. So in the third year of the war the whole work -- pensions, medical treatment after discharge, re-education, placement -- was turned over to the Ministry of Pensions and is now under one single administration.

The only country that saw the job from the first as a national responsibility was Canada, and I think it is a very great and lasting credit to our northern neighbors that they did so. Practically from the beginning of the war, no Canadian soldier has had to be in any way dependent on charity or philanthropy.

In conclusion I want to point out the importance of two other factors upon which I did not touch before. You may have re-education, you may have schools, you may have hospitals, and they may be the best in the world, and yet the work is not going to succeed unless there are operative two human factors: first, the spirit and ambition and enthusiasm on the part of the man himself; and second, the understanding of the subject and the support of the program by the public at large.

We are amazed as this work goes on at finding all over the country cripples who, in spite of every disadvantage against them, in spite of the public attitude, in spite of no means of help at hand, have made good and have overcome their obstacles. The help of those cripples is a great service in dealing with other disabled men because they can do more than any one else to demonstrate what can be accomplished and to cheer the men along. There are also ways of bringing this kind of enthusiasm and this kind of encouragement to disabled soldiers. One thing that the Surgeon General of the Army has done is to prepare a series of films showing successful American cripples. This series of films is to be shown in military hospitals abroad and will provide a very graphic demonstration to a man who has been disabled that he is not down and out. Another feature is the publication of a "cheer up" book, which contains the autobiographies of successful cripples. In Germany they have used, with good success, a book under the title of "The Will Prevails." The Surgeon General's office is getting out a magazine called "Carry On," the object of which is inspirational -- to give medical men, nurses, and all others concerned some idea of the purpose and character of the reconstruction work.

Dealing with the cripple himself is, perhaps, the easiest end of the problem, because if we do the work well and put real people into the game, he will take care of himself. The American is not easily downed and if you give him half a show he will "come across" with his end of the job. But to enlist the support of the public is a much more difficult thing. The public has not done much but injure the cripple in the past. If we train men and send them out into the community, with the public reacting to disabled men as it has in the past, the whole effort will be near a failure. This cannot be emphasized too clearly.