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Rarely does it happen that there is no work suited to a man's tastes and capacities, for the Belgian schools teach a very great variety of trades. The woodworking trades, the metal trades, the leather trades, all branches of printing, various farming specialties, and numerous other callings -- at Port-Villez, over forty in all -- give the individual a wide field for choice.

In most of the shops the aim is to produce salable articles as well as to teach the trade, but good teaching is never sacrificed for the sake of production. Large orders, for example, are filled for the army supply department, but whenever the foremen think it necessary to give greater variety to the men's work, there are interspersed private orders. No order is accepted unless it can be utilized for instruction.

Good teaching is a harder problem in the re-educational school than in a regular trade school owing to the fact that new pupils are arriving all the time instead of at the beginning of a term. To overcome this difficulty, the Belgian schools use an excellent system of group instruction. Recent arrivals in a shop are put together and started at the first processes of the trade under the guidance of a more advanced workman. At regular intervals, since different beginners will inevitably progress at different rates, they are regrouped according to their abilities. In some shops there is a monitor for every four workmen.

As a supplement to the practical work of the shops all the men learning trades receive some theoretical instruction. Through this they learn the principles of construction of their tools and machines, the properties and sources of their raw materials, how to determine the sale price of their products, and how to place them on the market. Wood and metal workers attend classes in draughting, not to become draughtsmen, but so that they may be able to read blue prints. In addition, every man receives some general schooling.

Commercial courses are given to fit men for civil service and other office positions, and there is a normal course for those who wish to become teachers.

After the Belgian government had so amply provided for the artisan and commercial classes among its disabled, it determined to complete its duty by giving to young men whose professional studies had been broken off by the call to arms an opportunity to continue their education. Since a university, unlike a trade school, could not be created overnight, these young men were sent to Paris, where they are lodged and boarded at the expense of the Belgian government while they study at the great Paris schools. The instruction has in most cases been made a free gift to them from the schools. Their books and instruments have been furnished by the Belgian Minister of Arts and Sciences.

As all men in the Belgian re-educational schools are still nominally soldiers, they receive besides their maintenance their soldiers' pay, but no pensions. If they are productive workmen, they also receive wages, a part of which is saved for them against their departure from the school.

In Italy as in the other allied countries all aid for the disabled soldier is based on the new principle that it must be aid through work. The old idea of giving the disabled soldier a pension and some soft government post was in 1914 still strong in Italy, where the war of the Risorgimento had been followed by much the same kind of pension legislation and veteran preference as our Civil War. Soldiers crippled in the struggle for Italia irredenta confidently expected to be treated as were Garibaldi's veterans, and to receive some comfortable sinecure in the postal or telegraph system or at least in the government sale of salt or tobacco. The new idea has, however, prevailed, and in 1918 all wounded soldiers in the Italian armies are offered something better than the means of living in idleness, namely, the chance to learn a useful trade.

The Italian law is that all crippled soldiers shall remain in the orthopedic hospitals until they can profitably commence their re-education. They are then dismissed from the hospital on a month's leave and allowed to visit their homes. At the end of the leave, unless they are plainly not in need of re-education or are too hopelessly crippled to benefit from it, they must report at the nearest re-educational school. They are required to stay in the school only two weeks, not long enough of course to make more than a beginning at learning a trade, but long enough to understand what re-education is and what benefits it holds out to them. They can then make their own decision as to whether they wish to continue or to return to their homes.

The schools of which the government now makes use in its scheme for universal re-education were founded by private means and remain under the management of local committees, but are controlled and in part supported by the government. Thus in Italy as in France the work was begun by private initiative and only later coordinated into a national system. Government control is exerted through an appointed National Board for the Assistance of Invalided Soldiers, similar to the French National Office. This Board inspects and supervises the work of the schools, grants charters to new committees, and revokes the charters of those that do not come up to the standard.