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Prior to the entry of America into the war there had been almost no provision for rehabilitation of the disabled adult. There had been several employment bureaus for cripples, in New York, Boston, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. These agencies had been struggling bravely, without recourse to training facilities, and with scant public support, to solve the economic problems of the disabled, and were attaining an encouraging degree of success. About five years previous there had been started, but later discontinued, a training school for crippled men.

So in spite of the excellent foundation of general vocational education the United States, at her entrance into hostilities, stood practically without special facilities for the re-education of the disabled. The need of such special provision had been long recognized by workers with the handicapped and was repeatedly discussed in a special journal on cripples which was their organ.

The first move to meet this need was taken the second month after America's declaration of war, when a public-spirited citizen offered to the American Red Cross funds sufficient to establish and maintain in New York City a training school for crippled men. While an original motive of the gift was a desire to make provision which might be helpful to the disabled American soldier, the school was started for crippled men in general, without distinction as to their civilian or military affiliation. Thus came into being the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men.

It became soon evident that this organization had logical responsibilities much wider in scope than the conduct of a local school of re-education. Legislation making government provision for the training of disabled soldiers did not appear on the statute books until fourteen months after the inception of hostilities, so for a considerable period there was no official agency to which to turn for information and advice. Yet there was wide interest in provision for the disabled soldier. To meet demands from the public for data on the organization, methods, and principles of re-education, as derived from experience abroad, and to provide a scientific foundation for the development of its own activities, the Institute initiated in July, 1917, a department of research. There was early issued a bibliography of the subject, followed by reports on activity in different countries, monographs, and translations, which have been freely distributed for the information of all interested in the subject.

This Institute, which undertook at once the training of crippled industrial workers, has established courses in the manufacture of artificial limbs, oxy-acetylene welding, printing, motion picture operating, jewelry-making, and mechanical drafting. There are also departments of employment, industrial surveys, and public education.

During the incubation of the national program the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men thus served as an experiment station and proving ground, and unofficially met demands upon it to the best of its ability.

In the formulation of the government plans there was considerable difference of opinion as to what authority or authorities should be charged with the responsibility of re-educating the disabled soldier. It was urged on the one hand that the entire task of rehabilitation in all its aspects should be entrusted to the Surgeon General of the Army; on the other hand that it might be handled by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance -- a government department administering family allotments and allowances and the new life and disability insurance, privilege of which was offered to men entering upon military service. A later suggestion advanced by the Council of National Defense was that re-education be entrusted to a commission under the War Department, made up of representatives of all the official and non-official interests concerned. Another proposal which was approved by a conference called by the Surgeon General of the Army at the instance of the Secretary of War, and which was embodied in the draft of a legislative proposal, called for an independent commission of five, composed of representatives of the Surgeon General of the Army, the Surgeon General of the Navy, the Treasury Department, the Department of Labor, and the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

The Administration felt, however, the unwisdom of erecting more independent boards or commissions unrelated to the regular executive mechanism. For this reason it was decided to fix the task on some already existing government department. The one designated in legislation introduced with executive approval, and later enacted, assigned the responsibility of providing for the rehabilitation of the disabled soldier and sailor to the Federal Board for Vocational Education, a body which had been created a year earlier to administer federal aid to vocational education by the states. The bill committing this new function to the Board became law on June 27, 1918.