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The Disabled Soldier

Creator: Douglas C. McMurtrie (author)
Date: 1919
Publisher: The Macmillan Company, New York
Source: Available at selected libraries
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 2  Figure 3  Figure 4  Figure 5  Figure 6  Figure 7  Figure 8  Figure 9  Figure 10  Figure 11  Figure 12  Figure 13  Figure 14  Figure 15  Figure 16  Figure 17  Figure 18  Figure 19  Figure 20  Figure 21  Figure 22  Figure 23  Figure 24  Figure 25  Figure 26

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To illustrate the combination of trades taught at any individual school, the list of courses at a few of them may be of interest. At Montpellier are taught: shoe-making, tailoring, carpentry and cabinet-making, varnishing, wood-turning and carving, metal-turning, mechanics, tinsmithing, harness-making, binding, dental mechanics, hair-dressing, the manufacture of artificial limbs, operation and repair of automobiles, industrial design, and bookkeeping;

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At Dusseldorf: metal work, mechanical engineering, telegraphy, electrical work, carpentry, cabinet work, wood-turning and carving, locksmithing, sculpture, stone-cutting, painting, paper-hanging and plastering, printing, photography and etching, cardboard work, leather work, bookbinding, dental mechanics, farming, stenography, typewriting, bookkeeping;

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At the Montreal Technical School: drafting, motor mechanics, civil service, business, English and French, stenography, carpentry, French polishing, pattern-making, electric wiring, mathematics.

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After possible and favorable subjects of instruction have been selected, however, it still remains to fit the individual to a trade. For doing this there are no general rules, and for ten cases of exactly the same handicap there will be ten different industrial decisions. The matter is determined principally by the past occupational experience of the soldier. He is a man, not a boy, and his education has been gained more in employment than in school. The new beginning is made, therefore, with a certain vocational preparation which must not be wasted. The aim is to synthesize preparation for the future from two-thirds former experience and one-third re-education designed to utilize that experience under the new conditions of physical handicap.

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This rule has been followed universally by the re-education authorities in all the countries at war. The Germans report ability to return all but one man out of twenty-five to his own line or one closely related. In this way training requirements are minimized, and the man has the best possible foundation for his new start in the world of industry and employment.

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A few examples can show, superficially at least, the way this works out. A freight trainman who has left a leg behind him in the base hospital is not in shape to return to his old job. Let us presume that studies by the vocational authorities have shown that operating the keyboard of a type-composing machine is an excellent trade for a leg cripple -- as it is. Shall the disabled train hand be re-educated as a machine compositor? The answer is emphatically no, for in this event all his railway experience would go into the discard. Special considerations not indicating to the contrary, however, the amputated soldier may be trained as a telegraph operator and sent back on the railroad to employment in a switch tower or the train despatcher's office, in either of which positions all his familiarity with rolling stock, train schedules, and general railway practice will stand him in good stead.

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There is added advantage in such a case that the man can be referred for work to his former employer who is fully acquainted with his record as to reliability and faithfulness. All the employer need then require is a certificate of the veteran's proficiency in his new role.

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On the other hand, presume a man who had been a hand compositor in a printing office came home with serious leg disability which precluded for the future his holding a standing job. Should this man be trained as a telegrapher, which proved a good trade for the other leg cripple? But again the answer is negative, for the precious print shop experience would be wasted. Training as a proofreader, however, would put it to good use.

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Some men may be raised another peg in their own trade, and their employment education thus conserved. A building carpenter, who may suffer from one of the thousand-and-one disabilities which are not apparent, who is so weakened physically that he cannot go back to work handling beams and joists, can be trained In architectural drafting and the interpretation of plans and prepared for a position as a foreman or inspector of construction. His former experience will be the best possible preparation for this job, for he will know all the tricks of the trade, and very little will get by him.

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An educator in one of the allied countries has pointed out that very frequently disabled men who have taken advantage of training go out to better paid jobs than they held before their injury. The position in any given line that requires less physical capacity usually is the one that requires more skill and head-work, and as such, carries with it higher earning power.

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The disabled farmer is somewhat of a special case, but he too should not abandon the occupation in which he is experienced. If he cannot return to pitching hay, he can be trained for poultry raising, dairy-work, bee keeping, or other of the lighter agricultural specialties. He will then not be subjected to the revolutionary change involved in transporting a confirmed countryman to industrial work in a large city -- conditions under which he is extremely likely to be unhappy.

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