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In a boarding-school men receive their living and often their clothing and laundry as well as their instruction without cost to themselves. If they attend a day school, they receive from some aid society a small allowance, three or four francs a day, which is expected to provide them with the necessities of life. In addition, most of the schools pay their pupils wages, a small sum at the beginning, which increases as the man's skill increases. Often these wages are paid out of the proceeds of the sale of the articles made by the pupils, the sum being divided among them in proportion to what they have done. At least a part of the money thus earned the men are expected to save so that they will have the wherewithal to buy the tools and equipment they will need when they set up for themselves. The family of a man in training has either his pension, which is never touched by the school, or the separation allowance which they received while he was in the army.

As has been said, the chief re-educational schools of France, with the exception of the national institute at Saint-Maurice, were originally financed by subscriptions from individuals plus grants of money from the city or department in which they were located. Later, as the very great national importance of their work was recognized, most of the schools received financial aid from the national government, submitting at the same time to government inspection. It then became apparent that there should be some government department which could efficiently oversee the work of the schools, co-ordinate their efforts, and work out a uniform system of re-education for the whole country. A bureau known as the National Office for discharged and disabled soldiers was accordingly created, with headquarters at Paris and branch offices or committees in each of the eighty odd departments, or administrative districts of France. It is the duty of the departmental or local committees to see that every returned soldier gets what he needs in training or employment; if facilities are inadequate, then these committees should see that the needed classes or schools or employment agencies are organized. The National Office itself is charged with giving a common direction to the work and with seeing that the best interests of the muiles are in every way served.

Good jobs are easily found in France for disabled men who have been re-trained for work. In fact, most of the graduates from the French schools have secured better positions than they had before the war. They have usually obtained their positions through the school where they trained, or, if the school did not undertake any placement work, through the local employment office for discharged soldiers. A great many employment bureaus for discharged soldiers were opened by unofficial aid associations during the first months of the war, but the work has now been mainly taken over by government bureaus under the control of the Minister of Labor. Local offices are now to be found in every city and town; exchange agencies for these are located in the prefectures, or capital cities of the departments; and there is at Paris a clearing-house for all the agencies in the country. All agencies have been instructed that they should whenever possible settle men in the district in which they lived before the war and either in their old trade or in an occupation closely connected with it. They have also been warned to make sure that the situations they offer are suitable ones for handicapped and often sadly shattered men. The industry in which a disabled man is placed should not be one with a slack season when the least efficient workers will be laid off, and the working and living conditions should be good. Above all, the individual should be really fitted for the position. There should be no placing of men in the first position that happens to turn up in the idea that the employer's patriotism will make up for the workman's incapacity. These are surely sound principles and should be at the basis of all placement work for disabled soldiers.

A very natural tendency on the part of employers to discriminate against disabled men because of the increased cost of workmen's compensation insurance when numbers of disabled are employed has been overcome by the passage of a new workmen's compensation law. This law provides that if an accident to a disabled soldier while at work was caused by his previous disability, the compensation shall be paid not by the employer but by the national government. And if the man's incapacity for work after the accident is due in any part to his previous condition, only that part of the allotted sum which is compensation for the direct results of the accident shall be paid by the employer, the government being responsible for the rest. The government's share of the compensation is to be paid out of a fund raised by a tax on employers and insurance companies. Since accident insurance premiums will therefore not be increased to the employers of disabled men and since employees are taxed whether they employ the disabled or not, there no longer exists this ground for discrimination.