PART I.

BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH.

From the day of its organization, July 21, 1917, the Federal Board for Vocational Education has taken an active interest and a leading part in the promotion of vocational rehabilitation, both as it concerns the men disabled in such large numbers in the World War and as it relates to the thousands of men and women injured every day in the pursuits of peace. Created in the midst of the recent conflict with the Central Powers, the Board embraced the opportunity of performing additional service in that stupendous enterprise. Therefore, while organizing its staff and beginning to establish relations with the States concerning the definite work prescribed by the law, the Board made a study also of the directions in which it could be of special use in the many problems arising from the war. Two services stood out as being peculiarly within the province of an organization appointed to deal with vocational education-the industrial rehabilitation for military or civilian service of men disabled in battle, and the preparation of the vast numbers of mechanics and technicians needed in modern warfare for service in the field and for the supplying of the instruments and munitions of war, including ships. In regard to the latter service see Second Annual Report of the Board, pages 27-37. In pursuance of the former objective, the Board almost immediately after organization established informal relations with the office of the Surgeon General of the Army, proffering its services in arranging the projected military hospitals for the giving of prevocational and vocational education therein and in conducting or in advising concerning this special type of training. At the same time representations were made to the authors of the proposed war-risk insurance measure that section 305 of that bill, while holding out the promise of vocational training to men disabled in the service of their country, made provision neither for the money nor for the personnel required to make that promise good. To remedy this defect the Federal Board, in October, 1917, proposed an amendment to section 305 of House bill 5723, under which the President would be empowered to appoint a commission to train, under military authority, men disabled in the service, and funds necessary to do the work would be placed in the hands of that commission. The reasons against imme

diate action presented by the authors of the bill and by the Members of Congress responsible for its passage were so cogent as to cause the Federal Board to refrain from urging this amendment, especially in view of the promise made that separate legislation covering vocational rehabilitation would be pressed at an early date. Meanwhile, however, it sought every opportunity to interest in the problem such responsible organizations of employers and employees as must eventually cooperate in making the projected legislation a success.

Nothing substantial growing out of informal discussions with the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army, the matter was brought to the attention of the President, who authorized the Secretary of War to call a conference of representatives of the bodies interested. This conference, beginning on January 14, 1918, was presided over by the Surgeon General. It remained in session for a number of days and appointed a subcommittee to draw up a suitable bill for presentation to the Congress. That committee represented the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy, the hospitals for the insane under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior, the Council of National Defense, the United States Bureau of Education, the Department of Labor, the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, the United States Employees' Compensation Commission, the United States Public Health Service, the Federal Board for Vocational Education, the American Red Cross, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Federation of Labor, and the medical profession. After due deliberation it presented a report embodying a bill substantially similar to that subsequently passed by the Congress in June, 1918, except that the rehabilitation work was to be administered by a commission of five persons representing the Surgeon General of the Army, the Burean of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy, the Department of Labor, the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, and the Federal Board for Vocational Education.

Three months elapsing without definite action, the matter was taken up by the Council of National Defense, which urged upon the President the calling of this proposed legislation to the attention of Congress, advising, however, that the administration of the work be placed with an existing body, the Federal Board for Vocational Education, rather than with a special commission. As soon as the matter came to the Congress action concerning it was begun, and a two days' hearing before the Joint Committee on Education brought out important testimony as to the immediate necessity for this kind of legislation and the general lines along which such an act of Congress could be made most effective. The required legislation was passed practically unanimously by both houses of Congress, and was

signed by the President on June 28, 1918. A section of the original bill, extending the benefits of rehabilitation to disabled civilians, was not pressed at that time but later was expanded into the industrial rehabilitation act, which became law on June 2, 1920.

Meanwhile, the Federal board had published during the winter and spring of 1918 three bulletins entitled, respectively, "Vocational Rehabilitation of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors," "Training of Teachers for Occupational Therapy for the Rehabilitation of Disabled Soldiers and Sailors," and "The Evolution of National Systems of Vocational Reeducation for Disabled Soldiers and Sailors." The last was prepared by the American Red Cross Institute for the Disabled, which body also generously financed a trip to Canada for the inspection of the rehabilitation work there by a group of persons selected by the Federal board to the end that, should the proposed bill become a law, no time would be lost in starting the enterprise with the nucleus of a staff familiar with similar work in Canada.

On June 29, 1918, the day after the bill became law, the Federal board called the attention of the Office of the Surgeon General of the Army and of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy to the section in the law enjoining such cooperation between those officers and the Federal board "as may be necessary to effect a continuous process of vocational training" and asked permission to enter the Army and Navy hospitals, under suitable regulations, for the purpose of explaining the benefits of the new law to the disabled soldiers, sailors, and marines. At the same time it brought to the attention of the Department of Labor the section requiring cooperation between that department and the Federal board for the purpose of securing employment for rehabilitated veterans. Satisfactory arrangements were almost immediately completed with the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery and with the Department of Labor; but formal admission to the Army hospitals was withheld until December 11, 1918, more than five months after the passage of the act, on the reasonable ground that injured men, when physically rehabilitated, would be needed for noncombative service and should not be brought into contact with civilians seeking their ultimate restoration to industrial life.

In order to discharge its responsibility for bringing the rehabilitation plans of the Government before every disabled man, the board sent three agents in August, 1918, to France. They were hospitably received by the military authorities there, and with Gen. Pershing's sanction and the active cooperation of the Red Cross, it was possible to bring the benefits of the rehabilitation law to practically every American in hospital on the other side. Like information was given on the returning transports and, altogether, the board distributed

through many sources over 5,000,000 leaflets and bulletins concerning rehabilitation. Nevertheless, thousands of disabled men returned to civilian life without any knowledge whatever of the rehabilitation law. These may be divided into two main groups: Men discharged with disabilities during the 14 months before the rehabilitation law was passed-that is, between April, 1917, and June, 1918—and a very much larger number of disabled men sent out from the Army hospitals between June 28 and December 11, 1918. The seeking out all over the United States of these tens of thousands of men in order to make them aware of their rights under the law has been a difficult and expensive task.

After admission to the Army hospitals was granted, new difficulties arose from the fact that after the armistice the pressure for discharges was so great that, instead of having a total of 15 or 20 discharge points, as the War Department had at first expected, the number rose to over 300, there being at one time 120 in the State of New York alone. To secure contact at so many discharge points with every individual when the men were thus flooding out of the hospitals, often on 24 hours' notice, was an impossible task. Thousands were therefore added to the great number already out in civilian life without knowledge of the rehabilitation act. Moreover, so many men, in order to secure discharge, swore that they had no disability that the Federal Board frequently finds itself in the difficult position of having to counteract the affidavit of a disabled man before it can admit him under the law to the benefits of training.

The situation would not have been so bad had the rehabilitation law functioned as its authors intended that it should. Unfortunately that law was framed upon the basis of making the Bureau of War Risk Insurance wholly responsible for financing the disabled man whether or not he should elect training, and it was expected that the Federal Board for Vocational Education would act simply as the educational agent for such trainees as were turned over to it by the bureau. Largely because of the conditions cited above, the bureau found itself unable to keep up with the task of determining the compensability of disabled men.

The Federal Board attempted, through unofficial channels of the bureau and through a straining of certain sections of the law, to get men into training before their compensation status was formerly arrived at; it enlisted the cooperation of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in providing a loan fund to tide disabled men over until their compensability should be determined; and it established so-called "receiving stations" into which it took penniless disabled boys and supported them on the ground that they needed observation and preliminary training before their real vocational ducation could be begun. As one means of expediting matters, the