Слике страница
PDF
ePub

tion conducted on these lines? How many are capable of being re-educated and how many doomed to be assisted? By consulting former experience, and on the faith of the soundest proof, 80 per cent. of the maimed are capable of re-education. They may be divided as follows: 45 per cent. totally, that is to say that they may succeed in earning normal salaries, on condition that 10 per cent. among them specialise. The direction in which they specialise should always be, as has already been said, within the limits of their former trade. Twenty per cent. may not arrive at a full working capacity, as their re-education is partial, but still it gives an appreciable output. The directing of men of this class towards their proper profession involves a series of scientific observations for the purpose of providing employers with exact knowledge as to the value of each man's output and capacity. Finally, 15 per cent. will have to practise subordinate trades (petits métiers) in which production is small, their re-education being entirely fragmentary. Whereas the 65 per cent. representing the first two classes may be put into ordinary workshops or establish themselves as "workmen in their own rooms," the last 15 per cent. must work in workshops organised for this purpose, where in any case they can earn a bare livelihood. The majority of the 20 per cent. not capable of being re-educated are dependent upon relief institutions for work; nevertheless a very small minority attain sufficient productivity to be useful in the workshops.'

These condensed quotations from a paper of extraordinary interest and value show that in France the relation of temperament to capacity has been recognised more clearly than with us. The importance of the psychological condition of the patient is insisted upon. This is another way of saying that if you seek to make a man you must build up his character as well as his body.

V

A few words may be of interest with regard to the experience of the Canadian Medical Service.

In most of the Provinces of the Dominion, Vocational Officers have been appointed to organise the training of the disabled at the various convalescent homes where they are still undergoing medical treatment. Classes have been established in these homes for carrying out simple technical training. There are courses in mechanical, architectural, and freehand drawing, French, English, arithmetic, elementary bookkeeping, typewriting and stenography, and poultry raising. Each soldier receives individual instruction, and the classes

are carried on each morning of the week, except Saturday, between the hours of 9 and 12 o'clock. Attendance at the classes is voluntary, and from 25 to 30 per cent. of the men avail themselves of them. This attendance is not considered satisfactory, and compulsory attendance has been seriously contemplated. Workshops have been fitted up to carry out wood-working and sheet-metal working. The goods made by the men are sold and the profits returned to them.

The work was undertaken mainly for the purpose of providing occupation, and only secondarily with the idea of increasing the industrial efficiency of the men. Deterioration of character and will power and progressive indifference to the future were noted as an accompaniment to a long stay in hospital. On the other hand, given reasonable occupation, the men improved. A correspondent, writing in July 1916, said:

'In many cases of neurasthenia the men have improved mentally through an interest they have developed in creating some object with their hands-such as little articles of furniture, etc. The handwork itself is of great value in getting many of the men into such a state of mind that they are willing, and in many cases capable, to return to industrial life instead of dreading their discharge from the convalescent home and being compelled to go to work again. In some cases this educational work in the convalescent home has been of such value to the men taking it that they have secured positions that pay them 50 to 100 per cent. more than the ones which they filled prior to enlistment.'

VI

This brief summary of experiments that have been made in this country, in France, and in Canada suggests that we are wrong in taking a limited view of a problem that is at the same time medical, educational, and industrial. It is not merely a question of restoring as far as may be the health and strength of soldiers disabled in the war. It is rather the much larger question of how one may seize the opportunity of increasing the skill and productivity of a considerable proportion of the industrial population. In the interests of the State it is necessary that every industrial unit should be brought to the highest possible point of efficiency. After the war there will be a period-probably a long period-during which arrears of production will have to be made up and the destruction

wrought by war repaired. There will be fewer men to do the work, and the numbers cannot, ought not, to be entirely made up by women. Many women will have enough work to do in their own homes.

In the interests of the individual one might offer the gift of education, that those at least who have the will may also have the means of increasing their economic value and earning the competence that skill commands instead of the bare 'living wage' of labour. We should have accomplished much indeed if we could but say hereafter that we had mobilised labour in the defence of the principles of liberty, and demobilised an army of skilled workmen that liberty might be enjoyed in the full exercise of heightened capacity. It is my belief that we could go a great way towards this ideal.

In the first place, the re-education of the disabled should begin by a primary selection and classification in hospital. When hospital treatment ends, convalescent treatment with continued industrial training should begin. During this period the patient's probable limit of capacity and his particular bent will reveal themselves. A final selection of trade or occupation may be made. Some men may soon be ready to take up their employment. For others there should be ample facilities for further education in technical classes, continuation schools, and the technological departments of universities. Owing to the widely different degrees of education among the men of the new armies, the whole educational facilities of the country might well be thrown open to them. There should be complete co-operation between the military authorities and educational bodies. Convalescent homes would in effect be re-educational depots, with advisory boards upon which the expert knowledge of the doctor, the educationist, and the industrial expert would be concentrated. The soldier entering such a depot should remain a soldier, with a soldier's pay and family allowance, until he left. He should not leave until he had attained a reasonable proficiency in the trade selected and until he had employment to go to. Men whose disability precluded them from more than a limited degree of efficiency would be mainly dependent upon their pensions, but there would be few for whom some employment could not be found.

If this were done for the disabled, something of the same

kind could be done for the 'physically unfit' and for the 'inefficient.' It is hard to draw a line between the 'disabled' and the ́ unfit,' except it be by an assumption that the ' unfit ’ were disabled before they were passed into the army. Really there is little distinction between the two terms, and it is neither fair nor economically wise to disclaim responsibility for men whose productive value is small and who for the remaining years of their lives will be potential burdens upon the community. These men, too, should be retained at army rates of pay for a period of re-education, in the hope and with the probability that the majority of them would increase their capacity for service and their value to themselves and to the community; and if these, why not the comparatively small number of inefficients?

The threefold problem is one difficult indeed to deal with, but very dangerous to neglect.

L. V. SHAIRP.

THE WORK OF THE SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' ASSOCIATION

NOT

FAMILIES

OT the least among the problems created by the sudden outbreak of war was the provision to be made for the families of our fighting men. It was recognised from the outset that the allowances granted to the wives and children would fall short in many cases of what was necessary, whilst many hard cases would arise in connexion with other dependents, such as widowed mothers and invalid parents. To meet these and other needs the National Relief Fund was established, and the appeal to the public for support met with a very generous response. The question then arose as to the best agency for distributing the sums collected.

The common complaint of our unreadiness for a great European conflict usually refers to our military forces, but it might apply with equal justice to the unorganised condition of our civil population and the absence of any satisfactory arrangements for dealing with the dependents of our soldiers and sailors. A European war was looked upon as so unlikely that this work had never received adequate attention. But such a war was sufficiently possible to compel the upkeep of an army and navy, and their existence implied that there ought also to be a properly organised system for the benefit of the dependents of the fighting men, so that as the men joined up their wives would go automatically on to the pay-sheets for their allowances. The omission of such organisation was the more inexcusable in so much as that it was well understood that in the event of war we should have largely to depend on the men in the Army Reserve and the Territorials, all of whom would be called from civil life and would necessarily leave their wives and children dependent on the army allowances. In peace-time army allowances are paid through the Paymaster's Department, but that was quite unsuited to the new problems which the outbreak of war created. Thus we had a centralised and under-staffed office attempting to make financial arrangements by correspondence with women who

« ПретходнаНастави »