Returning the Disabled Soldier To Economic Independence

It is surprising how very recent has been the development of the work of rehabilitating the disabled man.Up to ten years ago absolutely nothing had been done in that direction, and while the cripple received monetary compensation of one kind or another in the past, nothing was done to put him back on his own feet or to deal with him in a constructive manner.The only obligation acknowledged to the disabled soldier in the past has been the payment of a pension-which has not always been a help to the man in the long run.It has been a necessary provision, of course, but it did not go far enough.It was never enough to support a man, on the assumption that he was totally disabled, and has acted more or less as a subsidy which has not proven an encouragement for him to go out and earn his own living.We have dealt practically in the same way with disabled industrial workers.We have, even under the most enlightened legislation, compensated him for his disability in the form of a money pension and left him idle and without any means of getting back to usefulness.This is also, I am glad to say, in the process of change.The first school for the disabled adult was established in 1908 in Belgium, at Charleroi, and was practically the only school in existence up to the opening of the present war.During the first couple of weeks of hostilities that school was swept out of existence by the German invasion.The next move was made in Lyons, France, in December, 1914.That institution was the fore-runner of all the other schools, of which there are now over one hundred in France alone.The work has been taken up by practically every other nation, it being realized that the only real compensation to the disabled man is to put him back again where he can be useful, where he can be productive, and in a position where he can be happy and contented.Now when we talk about rehabilitating the disabled soldier

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