REMAKING MEN

By the close of 1919, Canada had 20,000 ex-soldiers—blind or maimed or otherwise disabled—under training in the arts of peace. They were mostly men who labored under such handicaps from the effects of wounds and other ordeals of war that they could not resume their former occupations. The Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment took them in hand after their discharge from hospital treatment and fitted them, by vocational training, for new callings that made them economically independent. Meantime, the men drew pay and allowances from the Government ranging from $60 to $150, according to the number of their dependents. The expenditure on this work of rehabilitating damaged men was regarded as a national investment, as it encouraged the disabled soldier to become a worker and producer.

Every ex-soldier, burdened with a disability to follow the calling he pursued before he joined the colors, became entitled to vocational training, free of charge, in any trade or profession of his own choice in which his disability would not be a handicap. Universities, technical and agricultural schools, and plants of leading manufacturers—where industrial training could be acquired under actual shop conditions—became centers of instruction. Provision was then made for both theoretical and practical knowledge, which was imparted in conjunction. Similar training was also carried on in hospitals and convalescent homes where the condition of the patients permitted.

Vocational training was a new field of Government work, a sort of uncharted sea, and until disabled men began to flow back from the battle front the Canadian Government had little information upon which to build a working policy. But the situation suggested its own solution. The first obvious need was convalescent hospitals, and a chain of such institutions duly appeared from coast to coast. Then the employment bureaus came into being, and the recovering patients, equipped with the vocational reeducation which the Government instituted, made the hospitals sources of supply for the labor market.

What was the status of a disabled man during the stage of convalescence and rehabilitation? He was taken in hand to be refitted for civil life. The Canadian Government therefore decided that he was no longer a soldier, to be supported with his dependents during his period of training on military pay and allowance. He became a discharged man and his maintenance was provided for as a civilian. The Government recognized that the duty of replacing a man in civil life as a useful member of the community was not a military function. To succeed as a civilian he had to be demilitarized, for the reason that while in service a soldier or sailor sank his individuality and lived under orders; his return to civil life required his restoration as an individual subject to the obligation, like other civilians, of making his way by his own initiative. The demilitarization of a disabled ex-service man, who, anyway, had only belonged to the army during the war period, was therefore regarded as an important duty of Government. In undertaking his reeducation, it "staked" him for resuming a civilian pursuit, and in doing so placed him on a footing very different from his previous army status. The course of reeducation given to a disabled man nevertheless remained a reward of valor, but it was also a recognition of the needs of a nation at peace, which required that discharged men should be restored as far as possible to the fullest usefulness as civilians.

Another element in vocational retraining was its formative purpose. A man was not "made over" in the sense of giving him a new occupation. His tuition was not complete enough for that. It rather directed him toward a new field of industry by equipping him with the groundwork, and he had to have the will to succeed and to overcome his handicap if his actual reeducation and replacement in a suitable civilian position was to be accomplished. The way was smoothed for his doing so by the avoidance of any compulsory scheme of reeducation. A man himself "elected" his course, though many disabled men needed guidance to protect them from choosing some line of work by caprice or impulse. In such cases a disabled man's vocational advisers endeavored to direct his choice in the light of all the information that could be drawn from his educational and industrial history. The essential thing kept in mind was that a man's previous education and experience should not be "scrapped" but rather made to form a foundation or background for his new occupation. Hence, a disabled man was trained when practicable for some new branch of his former occupation or for some allied or related occupation.

The problem was not confined to rehabilitating a man lacking a limb or eyesight. The blind, in fact, were few, compared with men suffering from other injuries, while the war cripple for the most part was a sound man in other respects. His physique survived his deficiency of limb; hence he was not broken in health and his condition revealed nothing of the invalid. More than that, only a small proportion of the disabled men invalided home were suffering from the loss of a limb. Out of nearly 30,000 who returned to Canada up to June, 1918, less than 1,500 had undergone a major amputation.

A survey of the first groups of returned disabled men, moreover, revealed that most of them were able to return to their former occupations.

The difficulty was not one of numbers; it related to the individual. From the point of view of its complexity, the success of the project of providing vocational reeducation for new occupations was dependent on the disabled men's response to the service proffered. Their immediate need was interesting occupation, as far as medical requirements allowed, while undergoing convalescent treatment in a hospital. A wide range of opportunities for occupational work developed during this hospital period, and its value to the patient was manifold. From the therapeutic standpoint alone, any kind of occupation was serviceable to the mind and body. It was also disciplinary in that it protected disabled men from moral and social deterioration—a danger always present during long periods of idleness—and it was of additional value to the institution itself as a check on the tendency to spoil returned men by overattention, active and interesting pursuits having been found to be the best antidote to such an inclination.

The field of diversions was wide; a patient could easily absorb himself in some task to the extent of his energies. The hospitals provided classrooms for general educational work; commercial training workshops for arts and crafts; a variety of mechanical and other occupations, outdoor work in gardening and poultry-keeping.

A number of men who started training courses in new callings did not continue them. Some were ambitious men whom the new training had readily stabilized for civil life and who had found positions before completing their courses. Others were released during the summer months for intensive farming to meet the urgent demand for greater food production. The clerical work of the military department also absorbed a large number, interrupting the pursuit of their commercial studies. A recurrence of their malady invalidated others and necessitated hospital attention, and beyond these were a proportion of unstable men of restless temperament who could not readily resume civilian occupation.

Over and above these were disabled men here and there who displayed an unwillingness to study for new callings, fearing that overcoming their handicap would mean a curtailment of pension by increasing their earning power. Injured French and German soldiers had revealed a similar indisposition to undergo vocational retraining lest their pensions be withdrawn. The Canadian Government took an indulgent view of this feeling and adopted a new army regulation providing that no deductions should be made from the amount of pension awarded owing to a pensioner undertaking work or qualifying himself in a new industry. As already indicated, a man was pensioned because of his disability in the open labor market, and was not determined by his earning capacity. As it worked out, his earning power in many cases was greatly improved by his vocational reeducation—to his own advantage, but even more so to the advantage of his country. The Canadian Government was early in the field in taking steps for the rehabilitation of the disabled, having provided working solutions to the problem long before the Interallied Conference considered the subject in 1918. The task grew beyond the scope of the Military Hospitals Commission, and a permanent ministry was found necessary. Especially as the work, following demobilization, also embraced caring for the undisabled discharged soldier in search of opportunity for reemployment. Free employment offices were opened in every center from the Atlantic to the Pacific and thither thousands of requests came from ex-soldiers for information as to channels open for obtaining positions. The result was some 200,000 or more interviews, and the reinstating of nearly 35,000 men up to September, 1919, out of 53,000 applicants. This scheme of reestablishing uninjured men in civil occupation following their demobilization had its beginning in a questionnaire sent to all Canadian troops abroad, asking them to state their intentions regarding employment on their return to Canada. The questionnaires were distributed from Ypres to the Vosges Mountains, from the Rhine to the English Channel, and throughout England and Scotland. Within two weeks of the signing of the Armistice a complete survey of the employment situation was obtained and transmitted to Government agencies in charge of the dispersal areas in Canada.

It was all part of a publicity campaign for enlightening the troops as to what the Government was prepared to do for them to facilitate their reinstatement in civil life. Lectures were delivered to them in camp, thousands of specially prepared pamphlets were distributed among them, while the Government's plans were otherwise made known through advertisements in newspapers and periodicals which circulated among the troops, as well as by means of moving pictures. Government representatives also accompanied men on homeward transports and dispensed information regarding the outlook for employment in the field that appealed to them.

With the help of the Labor Department the free employment offices were established in eighty-nine cities and towns. Each office had a special representative of the Information and Service Branch of the Department of Soldiers' Civil Reestablishment, who was at the service of all demobilized soldiers seeking employment. He "connected the wires," opening up communications with employers of labor and inducing them to favor ex-soldiers in filling vacancies on their staffs. Once in employment, the demobilized soldier was not lost sight of. The department kept in touch with him, in order to be assured that every man had been satisfactorily reestablished in civil life. The governing element behind these endeavors to restore every ex-soldier to the place where he belonged as a civilian was to make him again a producing power in the national life of the Dominion. Success could not have been achieved without public cooperation.

Another function of the department was the tendering of free medical service. All ex-soldiers who fell ill from any cause, within a year after their discharge from the army, received free treatment. Any recurrence of illness arising from war injuries entitled ex-soldiers to the same aid. Maimed men needed artificial limbs; they got them free. The disabled, returning from the front, required further treatment; the Government hospitals gave it. There were tubercular and insane patients; many medical and surgical cases of other categories; while other patient were treated in clinics. Patients under treatment in hospitals for disabilities due to war service always received adequate pay and allowances for their dependents.

The postwar calls on the medical service of the department were very great. In June, 1918, the number of military patients numbered only 1,200. By September it had reached over 10,000.

As to the provision of artificial limbs, the Government undertook their manufacture, in order to forestall the temptation to profiteer by private firms at the expense of men who had lost limbs in war service. The Government also made orthopedic boots and surgical appliances.

Perhaps the most notable feature of the educational work was the establishment of the Khaki University. This project differed from the vocational training of disabled men for new pursuits. It aimed at reaching all Canadian troops overseas who had interrupted their studies at school or college to join the colors. It gave them an opportunity to employ their spare hours in continuing the course of study for a professional or business career which had been broken by the war. Otherwise the time that would elapse, dependent on the war's duration, before they could resume training for their various callings, would make such a gap in their lives that with the war's close they would be completely severed from their former plans for intellectual careers. They would have to begin all over again.

The foresight of the Canadian Y. M. C. A. brought the Khaki University into being. But it had its real inspiration in the officers and men themselves. The "Y" officers were always receiving requests from them for books and reading material of the kind required by students. There were also many inquiries from the men as to what life they should adopt on their return home. The Canadian Y. M. C. A. thereupon perceived a need. Men who had mapped careers for themselves, especially in the teaching and other cultured professions, not to mention those whose future lay in technical and commercial fields, must be saved for Canada. The men were keenly anxious to resume contact with the problems of civilian life. They had their spare moments, and there was much lost time to be made up. They had lived down the early excitements of army life, and their social and civic instincts dominated them when they were not fighting. So the Canadian "Y" personnel took occasion by the hand, and, with the cooperation of the military authorities, brought the Khaki University of Canada into being. It obtained official recognition by becoming a branch of the General Staff, and started out on its novel educational scheme under the guidance of President H. H. Torry, head of the University of Alberta, who acted as Director of Educational Services of the Canadian oversea forces.

It was a simple scheme, though its operation called for much preparation, especially in securing the assistance of Canadian and English universities. In brief, it continued a soldier's schooling, where he had left off, by class work and lectures. Apart from its service in providing practical education to enable him to resume his life's work, it greatly contributed as a sustaining factor to military efficiency and the general morale. In many cases the Khaki University determined the future plans of men who had no fixed and satisfactory occupation, for by offering tuition it enabled them to choose and secure a definite calling in life. It so worked out that the educational work conducted in war time—there was a Khaki college on the fighting front and local classes known by the same name in England—created an interest which during the demobilization period that duly came intensified and enabled the men's readjustment to civil life in Canada an easier matter to control.

The Canadian universities formed an advisory board which supervised the entire work, besides providing teaching facilities and personnel, while the Canadian Y. M. C. A., having started the Khaki University movement on its way, undertook to finance it to the utmost after transferring its control to the Universities. The scheme came before the Canadian Government in October, 1917, and at once received the hearty support of the Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet. It obtained a support as valuable from the Canadian people, who, when asked by the Y. M. C. A. to subscribe a million dollars to finance the work, promptly responded by giving a great deal more.

In France what became known as the Khaki University of Vimy Ridge was established, but at the beginning of 1918 the spring offensive stopped further progress in the fighting areas until after the Armistice was signed. The main educational work was conducted in England, where campaign exigencies did not interfere with the movement. In fact, the demand for instruction was so great among the Canadian troops there that the work could not be discontinued. In 1918 fourteen Khaki colleges came into existence, established at various points, with a central college at Ripon for advanced instruction, while battalion schools taught educational rudiments, including elementary agriculture and commercial subjects. The college courses covered the higher branches of agriculture, applied science, commerce, art, and theology. Students of advanced grade also had the advantage of completing their courses after demobilization at the chief British universities.

The work in France was successfully continued during demobilization, though with difficulty. The number of students who registered during December, 1918, will serve as a criterion of its popularity, the four Canadian divisions mustering 8,352 registrants. For the benefit of men who could not attend class courses, a correspondence department was organized which reached Canadians in hospitals, forestry and railroad camps, and other places where local organizations were not practicable.

As to general results, the grand total of registration for the final six months of 1918, during which the Khaki colleges got into their working stride, was 34,768, while over 100,000 books and 750,000 educational brochures and pamphlets were circulated among Canadian oversea forces. The teaching was almost entirely performed by voluntary instructors, chaplains, Y. M. C. A. secretaries, and by army officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates, who had previously belonged to the teaching profession.