VOCATIONAL REEDUCATION OF DISABLED SOLDIERS—

CANADA'S EXPERIENCE

T. B. KIDNER, VOCATIONAL SECRETARY, MILITARY HOSPITALS COMMISSION, OTTAWA, CANADA

Pensions and war medals are not sufficient to pay the nation's debt to those who have become disabled by wounds or disease in the fight for freedom against tyranny on the battlefields of Europe or on the seven seas.

Pensions alone, however generous, are not sufficient to pay the nation's debt, but must be supplemented by sympathetic and efficient aid to enable the shattered to help themselves-to become once more conscious and able to participate in the true joy of living which comes only from useful and satisfying work.

The state should not only protect its wounded by giving them the means whereby to earn their livelihood by work, but it should also strive so to manage its work that the mutilated may come out of the disaster improved morally, socially, and economically.

One of the most vital problems which the "free" nations now engaged in this war against despotism have to face is the demilitarization of their citizen armies. As soon as it is establisht that a man's usefulness as a fighting unit is over he should commence upon his vocational rehabilitation. The army habit of mind under which a man literally need "take no thought for the morrow" must be overcome, and an important part of the duty of all who have to do with the industrial rehabilitation of the disabled is to help and encourage them once more to think for themselves, to act on their own initiative-in short, to "demilitarize" them for their own good and that of the community.

In Canada, as soon as a man arrives from over seas and is transferred to one of the convalescent hospitals which are establisht from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he is seen by a vocational officer who is always a civilian, even tho, as in many instances, he may have seen active service and have been himself disabled. This officer, acting in cooperation with the medical officers, arranges that the man shall take up some form of work at once. The value of this is threefold: First of all it has a great therapeutic value. Work as a curative agent will often do quite as much for a man as the medical care he receives. Secondly, it has a splendid moral disciplinary value, inasmuch as it counteracts the bad effects of a prolonged period of idleness. Thirdly, in many cases, it may have a direct bearing upon and value for the man's return to civil life.

For the more seriously disabled, that is, the men who by reason of their disability incurred on service cannot return to their former occupations, ⚫ the training begun in the hospitals is continued after a man is discharged, and he is given an opportunity of learning some new occupation suited to his disability. Only a small percentage of the disabled from war will

require vocational reeducation for a new occupation. Canadian experience shows that of the wounded and disabled returned to Canada only about 10 per cent will be unable to return to their former occupations. Of course only the more seriously disabled are returned to Canada, as many of the men who appear in the casualty lists are returned to duty after a period of treatment in the hospitals in France and England.

Canada is training her disabled men in about two hundred different occupations. This wide extent of courses has been possible thru the cooperation of manufacturers who have taken men into the industries themselves for the purpose of receiving training. Had the Invalided Soldiers' Commission been confined to training in educational institutions, it is evident that a very much narrower range of occupations would have been possible.

The training of the disabled has opened a real field of activity in vocational guidance. Every disabled man is treated as an individual case, and all the factors of his education, his industrial history, his mentality, his remaining physical powers, and his own desires for the future are taken into consideration.

Already, as the result of the vocational training provided for all disabled sailors and soldiers in Canada, many men are now in better positions than they occupied prior to their war experience. Vocational training and reeducation have solved the problem of the old soldier, and will in turn, it is hoped, solve the problem of the cripples of industry of this nation.

THE READJUSTMENT OF THE SCHOOL FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF A MANUFACTURER

JAMES P. MUNROE, VICE-CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL BOARD FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

An important war issue is that we have been wasters, and that this waste must cease. No one realizes this more vividly than the manufacturer. His motive power has been stopt by the coal situation; the receipt and distribution of his goods have been interrupted by the congestion of transportation; his markets have been bewilderingly changed; and his labor supply has been subjected to such strain as was never before known.

The manufacturer is therefore chastened, and it would seem a good time in which to impress upon him that he would have had fewer difficulties had he and those upon whom he is dependent been really educated.

The manufacturer is learning rapidly, but in his new study of industry he will not accept blindly what the schools have been giving him but will demand that the schools be made over to meet the new economic and social situation.

Among other things the aroused manufacturer will demand that education be made real and interesting; that it shall be made business-like; that

the pupil be made to understand his future responsibilities which are mainly (1) the duty of earning a living, (2) the duty of establishing himself as a real member of society by marrying and bringing up a family, and (3) the duty of performing his full share as a citizen.

He will demand too that the schools cooperate much more than they do with the parents, the industries, and civil life in general. This they can do by using, first, the factory, the farm, and the store as laboratories in which to give part of the school education; secondly, by making the school an adjunct to the factory, the store, and the farm; and thirdly, by dividing the work of teaching between the shop and the school under the so-called cooperative method. In other words, the manufacturer will soon be asking that the evening school, part-time continuation school, and the cooperative day school shall be made an effective part of public education.

This development is being helpt by the Smith-Hughes Law for the promotion of vocational education. Under the moral and financial sanction thus given, the schools and the industries can cooperate freely and effectively. In so doing they not only will be helping production, not only will be giving to the school such vigor due to purpose and interest as they have never before had, but will at the same time be building up a generation that will not tolerate such indifference, such waste, such slacking in the matter of active devotion to the duties of the citizens as we saw before the Great War.

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION UNDER THE
SMITH-HUGHES ACT

C. A. PROSSER, DIRECTOR FEDERAL BOARD FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION,
WASHINGTON, D.C.

Under the provisions of the Smith-Hughes Act as administered by the Federal Board, a part-time school is one maintained under public supervision or control, for the purpose of giving instructions to persons over fourteen years of age who have entered upon a trade or industrial pursuit, and who are releast during working hours to pursue instruction which shall fit them for more active and useful employment in the same or an allied trade or industry in which they are employed. The controlling purpose is to fit the students for better employment in a given trade or industrial pursuit in which they are already engaged, but in which are upon the lower levels, with small prospect of advancement without special training.

It is only upon this kind of a school that one-third of the federal fund for trade, home economics, and industrial education can be expended at all.

The controlling purpose of all part-time schools draws its administration from the law specifying "increased civic and vocational intelligence," and as one aim may be counted the increase of intelligence in a new vocation.

Primarily, the work is to make each pupil a better mechanic and obtain entrance into a better occupation than the one in which he is employed.

The Federal Board has taken a broad point of view concerning the meaning which could legitimately be given to the phrase "civic and vocational intelligence." Under this interpretation it will be possible for the states greatly to extend the number, variety, and enrolment of part-time classes.

Actual trade or industrial productive work must come first, and because of the limited course of study must contain only the points of greatest importance and value to the learner. The long, exhaustive, and detailed courses of the day schools cannot be transplanted to the part-time schools. The high lights, not as to difficulty but as to importance, for immediate entry into the trade taught must form the nucleus of every course. As the pupils are unfamiliar with the simple and fundamental manipulative process of the employment to be learned, the related subjects must come later and occupy a place of secondary importance.

It is possible to reach large numbers of boys and girls who, having left the elementary or high school, find themselves in most cases without correct guidance either as to how they shall get promotion, or how they shall make use of their time in the most advantageous manner, or how they may choose a more advantageous occupation. It is for these young persons that the law provides subjects which will "enlarge their civic or vocational intelligence."

As a rule these pupils are not naturally interested in learning from books. While many leave school for economic reasons, the majority leave school because formal school work does not appeal to them. They must be approacht thru actual trade processes and activities and thru their interest in advancement.

They are ambitious. The fact that they are dissatisfied with their present employment and seeking entrance to a better one affords a fine. method of approach to their interest in instruction and evidences the fact that they are good raw material.

If the local community providing part-time education is to meet a real need it must carry the part-time education to the places where it can be given most advantageously to the persons who have entered upon employment.

It is possible under the Smith-Hughes Act to organize a part-time school or class which will fit them for useful employment in a really desirable trade or industrial pursuit. The controlling purpose differs but little from the controlling purpose of the day trade or industrial school or class, but the work must be given under different conditions, since it is fair to assume that most of the energy and time possest by any person who has entered upon employment must be given to that employment, while the all-day school assumes that the entire day can be given to preparation for a trade or industrial pursuit.

The occupations taught must be simple enough to be learned in say thirty to sixty weeks of part-time instruction, or the work must be capable of division into distinct units, each part of the whole trade in any one of which sufficient skill will insure steady employment. Thus a lathe hand, turretmachine operator, ignition and battery-repair man, etc., are divisions of the machinists and automobile mechanics trades in which men are employed before they are considered all-round high-grade mechanics.

That there is great need for part-time education is too patent for controversy. The drift had been away from the ordinary schools and into the industries long before the war opened attractive opportunities for work. Lack of interest in ordinary school work; desire to be getting at some occupation where tangible returns may be had, and the spur of family necessity are all crowding the industrial ranks with young people whose equipment is meager. The field is a large one, and the need for part-time instruction is great.

THE REHABILITATION OF DISABLED SOLDIERS AND SAILORS OR VICTIMS OF INDUSTRY

CHARLES H. WINSLOW, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR RESEARCH, FEDERAL BOARD FOR VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Since the United States government withdrew from industry two or three million men, it is the duty of the government to replace them in industry, with due regard for the capabilities of the individuals, and to neutralize such handicaps as have been suffered by these men in their patriotic service. This is the position taken by the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

The rehabilitation of disabled soldiers and sailors or victims of industry is by no means a philanthropic proposition; it is entirely governmental and national in its scope. Eliminating absolutely the sentimental and humanitarian aspect of the question, the facts all point irrevocably to this work as a part of the grim business of war, the first constructive step after so much destruction. It is a salvaging of precious material of which the foundations of this nation are a part-its incomparable manhood.

Vocational reeducation of men disabled for military service is therefore a means not only of conserving trade skill but of conserving it in a time of national emergency and of preventing in some degree the scarcity of skilled labor that is certain to develop as the war progresses. The nation which does not conserve the vocational skill of its trained workers will to that extent weaken its recuperative and competitive power and to that extent will consequently fail to achieve the immediate national rehabilitation of its industrial, commercial, and agricultural power.

The return to civil employment of large numbers of men under the abnormal conditions of the period of demobilization will occasion far