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The soldier remains under charge of the War Department until medical treatment is completed, and the necessary prosthetic apparatus provided. He is then discharged from the army and passes under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior.

The military hospital, containing seven hundred beds, is equipped for all kinds of medical and surgical work.

The prosthetic division consists of five shops. In one is tested the apparatus supplied by private concerns; in the other four, orthopedic appliances and prostheses are manufactured by workers whose services have been commandeered by the Ministry of War.

The hospital and the school operate conjointly. In many instances the trade training begins while the patient is still undergoing treatment.

The trades taught at the Institute are shoemaking, tailoring, tinsmithing, and harness-making. There is also a commercial section, which includes courses in primary instruction, in commercial bookkeeping, and drafting. Finally, there is a special department where the men are taught to operate and repair tractors, agricultural machinery, and automobiles.

The men are lodged and boarded at the Institute. The dormitories can accommodate three hundred pupils; in addition, seventy-five beds in the hospital are reserved for men under training in the workshops.

One-armed men are not, as a general rule, directed into industrial pursuits. In exceptional cases, however, former agricultural workers are taught tractor operation. Whenever suitable, men with arm injuries or amputations are given instruction in drafting or in commercial subjects.

One of the principles of the school is to make the period of apprenticeship as short as possible. Dr. Bourrillon estimates that the time required to give an adequate training is four months for a bookkeeper, six months for a tinsmith, eight months for a shoemaker or agricultural mechanic, ten months for a harness-maker, and a year for primary instruction of an illiterate or for industrial design.

The most popular workroom in the school is the shoe-making shop, the number of pupils averaging sixty. Most of the men attending this course are one-legged or legless. Half of them are farmers who intend to return to their homes. A month's training is allowed for plain machine stitching, seaming welting, and soling. At the end of five months, the men should be able to re-sole shoes, both pegged and hand-sewed. Complete shoes are made by men of average ability after eight months.

The tailoring department was not successful. The minimum apprenticeship of one year the men considered too long, and there were but few willing to undertake it. Instruction in this trade was therefore discontinued.

In the harness-making shop, all branches of the trade are taught, though the greater part of the business is repair work. As by-products, the shop turns out small leather articles, such as pocketbooks and cigarette cases.

The metal work shop turns out fireless cookers, army canteens, and small tin articles. The men are taught sufficient of pattern work, soldering, and joining to become journeymen in the trade.

The department of farm mechanics, which include tractor operating and repairing, is considered as one of the most important, in view of the great demand for agricultural machinery expected after the war on account of the shortage of labor. A number of graduates have been placed, either on farms or as demonstrators with firms which sell agricultural equipment.

The drafting department comprises two sections, mechanical and architectural. Arm injuries predominate in this department; many of the students are one-armed. There is great variety in the former occupations of the men; alongside of five draftsmen who had lost their right arm and were learning to do left-handed work were found nine machinists, one butcher, one chair-maker, one sausage-maker, one cook, three peasants, three cabinet-makers, two commercial clerks, one engraver, five masons, one seaman, two joiners, one meter inspector, two electricians, one moulder, one building worker, one house painter, one sculptor, three locksmiths, one stone-cutter, and one without trade.

The course in accounting shares popularity with shoe-making. The number of applications for this course is so large that it has been found necessary to confine admission to men injured in the arm and men formerly employed in commerce; the latter make thirty-six per cent, of the pupils. Among the others are found a considerable number of former peasants -- about twenty per cent. --and miners, masons, lathe-workers, printers, basket-makers, laundry hands, and so on.

The pupils are free in choosing their trade; they are free also to change to another trade if the first choice has proved unsatisfactory. They may also leave school at any time they desire. Discipline has been reduced to the minimum, and every unnecessary limitation upon the freedom of the pupils has been eliminated.

The administration makes it clear, however, that the Institute is a place for work and study rather than an asylum home; it reserves the right to dismiss any man who does not work with sufficient industry to learn a trade in a reasonable time.