Library Collections: Document: Full Text


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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It is the duty of the Local Pensions Committee to provide facilities for the training of its disabled ex-service men. It was soon seen that the training facilities of a larger area than that within the jurisdiction of most local committees must be made available if the variety of occupations demanded were to be provided. So Joint Advisory Committees, composed of the representatives of local committees, were formed in 1916 to arrange comprehensive schemes for utilizing the facilities for technical education within whole counties or groups of counties. Twenty-two of these joint committees were formed in the United Kingdom. They surveyed the technical facilities in their respective districts and syndicated them in the interests of all.

630  

For many years the British government has aided local technical schools, and the result has been a surprisingly large number of institutions where one or more trades are taught. These trades cover the principal industries of the country. The number of technical schools in the industrial counties of Lancashire and Yorkshire is particularly noticeable. Both of these counties formulated ambitious schemes for the training of disabled men in every variety of industry pertaining to the soil, the mine, the factory, and the sea. The cooperation of all the principal technical schools in the training of disabled men was secured. The offer of facilities seems to have greatly exceeded the demand.

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Not only have the technical schools been utilized for re-education but many men have been trained directly in workshops and factories. The plan advocated by several of the trades advisory committees provides that a man shall spend part of his time at a school and part of his time in actual work in a factory or workshop. By this means a balance is maintained between the theoretical and the practical.

632  

It must not be supposed that every man returns to his home district absolutely unprepared for an altered industrial career. Many of the men avail themselves of the opportunities afforded by the workshops connected with the hospitals in which they have spent their period of convalescence. Early in the history of the war curative workshops were established in the hospitals of Roehampton and Brighton, whither men who have suffered some amputation are sent. Major Mitchell, the director of one of the leading technical institutes, was chosen to direct the courses. The therapeutic value of manual work has been fully recognized, and many a man, invited to busy himself in a workshop with the tools of a man's job ready to his hands, has not only found a stimulus to the functional activity of injured members but has actually learned a trade while waiting for nature to heal his wounds and the government to furnish him with an artificial limb. Not every man avails himself of the opportunities offered him in the hospital and must look to his local committee to furnish the opportunities for training he slighted or to supplement his training by continuation courses.

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Upon his discharge from military service the disabled man is granted a pension based upon the degree of physical disability he has suffered and is free to return to his home locality. His future lies within the advisory jurisdiction of his Local Pensions Committee acting for the Ministry of Pensions. He may choose to live a life of inactivity depending for a scanty subsistence upon the slender stipend granted him by the Ministry of Pensions. He may accept a job ready to his hand, because of acute industrial conditions caused by the war, from which he is likely to be ousted by the return of able-bodied men upon the demobilization of the army. Or, he may accept training at the expense of the state and become a skilled worker with better prospects of continued employment when normal times return. The good sense of the man and the persuasiveness of the local committee will largely determine what course he is to pursue.

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If he elects to take training he will receive, during the time required for his re-education up to six months, his total disability pension together with a family allowance, all necessary fees will be paid for him and at the end of his course he will receive a bonus for each week of training. The state cares for both himself and his family during his period of re-education. At the end of his course he will be fortified against the exigencies of the future by the wages he can earn at a skilled trade and the regular pension to which his injuries entitle him. It is expressly stipulated that his pension shall never suffer diminution because of his increased earning capacity. Many disabled men are now receiving from this dual source larger incomes than they enjoyed before they entered the service of their country.

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The demand for disabled men who have received training has been so great that no difficulty has been found in finding employment for them. The admirable system of state labor exchanges provides the facilities for placing disabled men in industry and their services will be in still greater demand when peace returns and conditions of employment are greatly altered by the return of men from the front.

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