THE TECHNICAL RE-EDUCATION OF MEN MUTILATED IN THE WAR 57 



For this end it is first necessary that the recruiting of pupils lor the 

 schools of agncultural re-education should give better results. It should 

 be considered whether it be not a mistake to wait for the discharge of a 

 mutilated man before admitting him to a school of re-education, and whether 

 — what is worse — this mistake do not* tend to his own disadvantage. 



The experience of these State schools as of the private schools has shown 

 clearly and precisely at what time technical re-education should begin. 

 It should not be left until a m:;n's discharge, or the number of the re-edu- 

 cated may be infinitesimal and a failure may result. It .should begin be- 

 fore discharge, while hospital treatment is still being received, and should 

 accompany re-education in physical functions. Recruiting should take 

 place among mutilated and wounded men who will be discharged. The 

 methods of beginning re-education at the earlier and at the later stage have 

 been tried, notabh in the district school of Ondes near Auch (Gers) ; and there 

 is no longer an}'' doubt that the earlier start leads to excellent results from 

 every point of view. Wounded men who are going to be discharged are 

 delighted to be taught while they are undergoing treatment. Several of 

 them have even confessed that they came to these schools with the settled 

 purpose of settling later, when they were free, in a town, and that their 

 taste for agriculture has been revived Very often a discharged mutilated 

 mail does not come to the schools of re-education and leaves the land be- 

 cause he imagines that he will never be able for the varied work of fields 

 but is good only for a simple and monotonous task in a factory, or even that 

 he is no longer adapted to any physical labour. Mutilated men who have 

 reached this point of doubting completely their strength or skill may be 

 shown that it is possible for a man who voluntarily abstains from the use 

 of one limb to execute the labour of agriculture. 



At the end of a week the men have regained confidence, and a month 

 later they are almost normal workers. lyittle by little they are convinced 

 that they must not look upon themselves as the inferiors of hale men, of 

 whom the}^ become at least the equals in right of the knowledge they acquire 

 at the school of re-education 



Moreover not only has experience shown that technical re-education 

 should take place as soon as the condition of the wounded and mutilated 

 men allows of it, but the doctors have further discovered that to secure ra- 

 l)id cures and success in the reteaching of muscular functions there are no 

 better exercises than the infinite varieties of movements and attitudes to 

 which agriculture gives rise. 



The Health Service therefore gave back to the department of agricul- 

 ture the national schools of Montpellier and Rennes, in order that sections 

 for re-education might be installed in them side by side with medical 

 centres. The Ministry of Agriculture completely fitted up the school at 

 Grignon for the reception of more than sixty wounded men. This combi- 

 nation of re-education and hospital treatment is realized wherever possi- 

 ble The excellent results which it already gives allow the hope that agri- 

 cultural re-education will keep on the land almost all the wounded and mu- 

 tilated countrymen who might think of leaving it. 



