The Aston Technical School has been engaged in similar work. They made no special effort to secure disabled men, but in one way and another seventy-four wounded soldiers and eighty discharged through disease had come to them for training. They had placed twenty-four wounded soldiers as follows: Gaugemakers, 6; tool-setters, 6; tool-turners, 2; tool-hardener, I; viewers, 4; moulders, 2; millers, 2; core-maker, 1. Of the discharged soldiers, thirty-six had been placed as follows: Shell-turner, I; moulders, 3; coremakers, 3; tool-setters, 4; tool-maker, 1; toolturners, 7; fitters, 3; viewers, 5; capstan operators, 2; gaugemakers, 3; aero-erector, I; aero-assembler, 1; sheet-metal worker, 1; press worker, I; moulder, 1.

The length of the course varies from one to six weeks for viewing, and from three to four months for gauge-making. Tool-turners, toolsetters, moulders, millers, and grinders can usually be trained in from four to five weeks. No distinction is made between discharged soldiers and ordinary trainees. Both receive the same maintenance allowance of £2 per week, for a fifty-hour training week.

No difficulty has been experienced in placing trained men with munition firms. The principal writes: "As a rule, the men who are intelligent and industrious do exceedingly well, and I have in my possession testimonials from various firms expressing satisfaction and appreciation of the work the trained men are doing for them. It is quite possible that the less-skilled men may be thrown out of work when the war is over, but the more highly skilled men will retain their places."

3. To report upon any schemes of training, either in technical institutes or in factories, that may be necessary for disabled men, whether formerly employed in the trade or not, and to give advice as to suitable centers throughout the country in which such training might be given.

4. To advise upon any general questions with regard to the rate of wages to be paid to disabled men in the trade.

The reports of committees in five trades have been published, viz., attendants at electricity sub-stations, employment in picture theaters, tailoring, agricultural motor-tractor work in England and Wales, and the furniture trade. In each of these trades the courses offered in various technical schools are commended, the prospects for permanent work surveyed, the general scale of wages discussed, and the type of disabilities which would not bar a man mentioned.

The committee on the furniture trade, composed of eight representatives of employers' associations and eight representatives of trades people, has analyzed the trade into thirteen processes and has suggested the adaptability of each for different types of disabled men. It has also established regulations regarding the nature of the training and the scale of wages to be paid. It stipulates that the course of training in any process shall be divided into a probationary period and an improvers' period. In all processes, with the exception of the glass processes, the probationary period is to be spent in a technical school, under a scheme approved by the Ministry of Pensions, wherever, in the opinion of the Local War Pension Committee, the man can conveniently attend such a course. The improvers' period shall be always spent in a factory or workshop. This attitude towards training in technical schools, during at least a part of the course, seems to represent very fairly the attitude of both employers and work people towards the value of the technical schools of the country in the re-education of the disabled soldier and sailor. Training in workshops and factories is sanctioned in some cases, but no fees are ordi

narily to be paid for the training, and the employer is expected to pay to the state such wages during training as may represent the net value to him of the man's work. The advantages of instruction in a technical institution are deemed

to be such that the state is willing to pay a fee for the instruction.

SUMMARY

The development of technical education in England under the encouragement of the government, and by grants made by local authorities, has resulted in a large number of technical schools with facilities for instruction in every industry of the country.

These institutions are looked upon both by employers and work people as affording the best facilities for the re-education of the disabled soldier and sailor.

The state undertakes to pay such fees for the training of disabled men as represent the 'out of pocket' expenses of an institution for providing special classes for these men.

The task laid upon the technical schools by the state is by them recognized as involving certain modifications in their educational ideals. Short,

intensive courses are needed to fit adults in a brief period to become wage-earners. Hence, many things thought necessary to give young persons a thorough trade training must be omitted.

The facilities for technical instruction in a given district have been surveyed and pooled under the direction of joint committees, so that a variety of trades may be taught to men with different disabilities and previous industrial experiences.

The danger of training too many disabled men for a particular trade is guarded against by the appointment by the Ministry of Labour of Trade Advisory Committees who also pass upon the kind of instruction desirable, the prospects of permanent employment, and the scale of wages paid in a particular trade. In this way coordination is secured in the use of the best facilities the country affords for training its disabled soldiers and sailors at the expense of the

state.

The war has brought to our attention a new problem-the finding of employment for our crippled soldiers and sailors. There is no class of people who need guidance into the right kind of work as much as cripples. At present employment workers have organized their work, so that they can give much useful vocational information to boys and girls, but so far there has been little effort to gather together the facts about cripples which would be useful in placing them. In order to meet this need in New York City, and to be a center for information about industrial opportunities for cripples in the United States, the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men started an employment bureau in December, 1917. This bureau finds positions for industrial as well as war cripples.

Eventually we are all looking to the public employment bureau, run either by the federal or state authorities, as the primary solution of the employment problem. Unfortunately, however, the technique of these bureaus in this country is developing so slowly, that it is necessary for private organizations to work out the special problem-such as that of the cripple-and then after the method has been fully developed to urge the public bureaus to take over the work of the specialized bureaus. To place a cripple involves a tremendous amount of individual attention to each case. Clerks in public employment offices, who are attending to hundreds of cases in a week, can accomplish little for a cripple. Crippled men have been going around without success from one bureau to another and finally in discouragement they have taken, as a last resource, to some form of begging. Surely there can be no greater waste than that men who might be

good, industrious workers if they knew into what niche of industry they could fit, should be without employment because there is no one to guide them into employment suited to them. You ask a cripple, 'What kind of work do you want to do'? His habitual answer is 'watchman'. We all know that there are few watchman's positions and many of these are unsuitable for cripples. The purpose of this bureau is to be able to answer this question in such a variety of ways, that each man may find for himself some work that is congenial and constructive.

In October, 1916, a small bureau for cripples was started at Hudson Guild by the Federation of Associations for Cripples. The Red Cross Institute has taken over the work of this bureau and has used the past experience in formulating its plans. Meantime the bureau had secured about 150 positions. Its experience was at times very discouraging, because so few of the placements were at all constructive. It is impossible for a bureau as small as that of the Federation while at Hudson Guild, to be really effective. It indicated, however, clearly the need for work of this kind, if organized in a careful, scientific

manner.

There were a number of important facts that the year's experiment pointed out. An employment bureau for cripples has two functionsemployment work and investigation of industry. It would be uneconomical to run a bureau at such a large overhead expense were it not utilizing to the greatest degree all its facilities. With proper organization it is possible to gather many industrial facts at the same time as one is interviewing employers and employees. These facts when collated are more valuable than that