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In like manner, at Winnipeg, Canada, the men who have been trained for clerical positions are put for the last month of the course in a model office, equipped with all the modern appliances such as adding machines, billing machines, filing systems of all kinds, telephone switchboard, and the like. Such equipment does not embarrass them, therefore, when they go to their real work.

It has already been pointed out that courses must not be too long, and that this necessity serves to exclude some subjects from choice for the training of disabled soldiers. Nine months is as long as the average course can wisely take, and one year is usually the limit. The Canadian authorities endeavor to make most of the courses come within six months. Many subjects can satisfactorily be taught in an even shorter time, for example, power station switchboard operating, oxyacetylene welding, and so forth.

A question closely related to the manner of teaching is that of character, source, and training of instructional officers. Whether they shall be drawn from the ranks of teachers or from among engineers or manufacturers is a subject of wide discussion. The tendency in Canada now is to depend on the latter source, the argument being that the problem is industrial rather than educational, and a material proportion of the training is being done in shops. In Great Britain the solution is clear, since most of the work is done in already existing and organized technical institutes, whose regular staffs carry on the teaching. In the United States the first workers are being drawn from the vocational education field, some of the men having been given a special course of study in New York and travel and observation in Canada, in order that they may know how to apply their own particular technical experience to work with the disabled soldier. If such men serve as directors or vocational advisers, it is fairly simple to draw the actual instructors from trade workers and imbue them with the right social spirit in dealing with the men. It needs teachers of manifest experience and competence to command the respect of the disabled soldiers.

It becomes of increasing importance as the war progresses to recruit as directors and teachers returned soldiers who have seen service at the front. They get better work from their pupils and are in an infinitely better position to maintain discipline. The man wounded overseas tends quite naturally to regard stay-at-home citizens as slackers, and he demands employment of veteran comrades in their stead.

It has required some courage in Canada to stand out against the demand for appointment to a job of a returned soldier of inferior qualifications rather than a civilian of marked ability. Now, however, the great majority of representatives of the Invalided Soldiers' Commission have seen overseas service. In the repatriation service of Australia the minister recently reported that ninety per cent, of the men on the payroll were returned soldiers. Immediately the voices of parliamentary members were heard in criticism that the proportion should have been still higher.

If the military officers are used in any relation to re-education, it is practically essential that they be officers themselves invalided from the front. The soldiers regard the uniform as the badge of a fighting man, do not look kindly on its assumption by stay-at-homes, and practically refuse to acknowledge the authority of an officer who has not seen actual service. Of course, this necessity does not become operative until some little time after belligerency begins.

In setting out to provide for the re-education of disabled soldiers what facilities should be employed? Can existing facilities be utilized or must special schools be erected or organized?

The ideal arrangement would be to assign men for training -- under national supervision and at national expense -- to a special vocational school for the disabled, but these practically do not exist. The reason why this would be desirable is that the staff would be already familiar with the particular difficulties of the disabled man, and experienced in dealing with him. The rehabilitation of the physically handicapped is not wholly an educational or industrial problem -- it is very largely a social one.

The men who might be highly successful in the vocational education of young men might fail of the patience requisite to the training of the disabled. Due perhaps to the past public attitude toward the crippled and blind, perhaps to expectation of future support by pension or compensation, perhaps to a feeling of helplessness on the part of the man for going out again into industry, there is certainly a psychology of disability and as surely a social philosophy for meeting it. Although preparation of teachers and directors by theoretical instruction and observation may accomplish much, real capability is attained only by actual experience with the disabled man himself. This experience the special school for the handicapped, if operated on modern lines, brings ready to the task. But although every industrial community needs such schools, they do not exist. Dependence for the execution of an extensive national program must in consequence be placed on other means.