the advice of friends and advocates of both redemp

tion projects.

Undoubtedly this new national policy will exert very beneficent influences upon our future industrial and social life. The rectification of injustices now suffered by those disabled in employments, a yearly toll of maimed and injured which in the aggregate far exceeds all the casualties the Nation has suffered in the war just ended with those of the Civil War added, offers a wide field for practical and constructive effort. At the same time, there will be as a result of this retraining of the disabled concrete evidences in almost every community of the value of specialized vocational education. These living testimonials will inevitably emphasize the advantages of vocational training for those who have not suffered physical impairment, and thus give impetus to the more general acceptance of this inherently practical system of training for life work. When that time

comes, there will be eliminated many of those lost years of young manhood and young womanhood wherein workers who have no particular ability earn only the small rewards mediocrity and lack of skill have ever been able to obtain.

Much has been written on various aspects and developments of vocational rehabilitation for disabled soldiers. In the main it has either dealt with technical features of no particular interest to the average reader, or else the superficial features of occupational therapy have engaged the attention of magazine expositors. At best it has been fragmentary and widely scattered as regards the whole subject, nor has there been anywhere a comprehensive chronicle of the rise and development of this movement in the United States to its present status. There is a plain demand for a record dealing with the whole subject in general

terms and particularizing with respect to the acceptance of the fundamental principles by the United States Government and their development in this country. With that aim in view the present work was undertaken. Much of the material was obtained from original sources opened to the Federal Board for Vocational Education in its studies on the subject of vocational rehabilitation of the disabled in Europe. Other data, public documents of other nations and similar material, have been available, were drawn upon when occasion required and fitted to their places in the narrative. My effort has been to present a general, non-technical, but at the same time accurate survey of the whole field with emphasis upon that part of especial interest to the people of the United States. Acknowledgment of very valuable assistance and contribution of material by Dr. John Cummings of the Research Department of the Federal Board is appreciatively made, as well as the advice and interest of the editor of this series throughout all stages of the book's preparation.

If the book serves to assist in directing attention to this new system of practical, individual justice, this new exorcism of dependency, this truly wonderful message of hope, and thus in some degree causes the public mind to persist in these inquiries and developments which mean so much to the individuals affected, and through these individuals redeemed to humanity at large, I shall feel amply rewarded.

GARRARD HARRIS.

FOREWORD

The United States was the last of the great nations to join the Allies who were battling against the Hun for the decency and the liberty of the world. Consequently it was the last of the belligerents to make provision for the proper rehabilitation of the soldiers and sailors disabled in the fight for our national honor and our national safety. While the scheme for the vocational reëducation and placement in employment of our disabled warriors came last in point of time, it stands first in the liberality with which this Government has made provision for the proper restoration to civil life of those injured or disabled in the Great War.

How successful the plan of vocational rehabilitation for this country which Mr. Harris has described in this book will be in restoring our disabled warriors to successful and happy employment depends upon the efficiency with which the Federal Board for Vocational Education is able to discharge the responsibility for that work as committed to it by the Congress.

A large part of this book is devoted to a most excellent exposition of the law and the plans and policies of the Board in the administration of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act which became law on June 27, 1918. As Mr. Harris is connected in an editorial capacity with the Board, he speaks with an intimate knowledge of its work and plans. Combining with this a deep and enthusiastic interest in the whole problem of the handicapped man and a rare ability to write in an attractive way, he has been able to make

what I regard as a most distinct contribution to the literature of the whole subject.

Those interested in a popular comparative study of the schemes of all the belligerents for the vocational rehabilitation of their disabled men will find that the author has not only looked forward toward the work before the Federal Board, but has also summarized clearly the plans and policies of our allies and pointed out the essential oneness of aim and the necessary differences in procedure between each of them and our own country.

Best of all, Mr. Harris has set forth the philosophy of the whole movement for the rehabilitation of handicapped persons whether injured in war or in the discharge of the duties of their civilian employments. The fundamental justification and aim of the work is not that of gratitude to those who have been injured in the Nation's defense, though this is a holy reason and the moving cause of the liberal provisions which the warring nations have made for their wounded men. Far deeper than this, even though society may not yet be fully conscious of the trend of this legislation, is the need for the conservation of our human resources and the demand for social justice that no democracy redeemed by this awful war can deny. Without reeducation and placement in employment, disabled soldiers and sailors would go to the waste pile as social dependents as so many have done in other wars. As Mr. Harris points out, however, the victims of our modern industrial life greatly outnumber those injured in the war. Any programme for the conservation of the handicapped has but little significance until it includes within its benefits this larger group, unsupported as it is by either a soldier's insurance or a soldier's compensation. Whether the handicapped man serve society in war or in peace, his

restoration to successful employment is a wise business investment certain to yield large deferred dividends in industrial peace, happy homes, selfdependent workers, and national prosperity.

Most important and fundamental of all, the restoration of the handicapped man as a useful, self-supporting member of society needs to be asserted as a national policy, and never more so than in these parlous days when some of our friends among the social reformers seem to forget that the inherent spirit and purpose of a democracy is, on the one hand, to establish social justice, and, on the other, to provide the education and the opportunity by which men, according to their abilities and their energies, may be able "to find themselves and to help themselves."

CHARLES A. PROSSER.