64 FRANCE - AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY IN GEXER-\L 



of agriculture and horticulture. The school also trains basketmakers, 

 shepherds and rural mechanics. According to the director, M. ]\Iontaux, 

 recruiting for it is accomplished fairly easih' by advertisements in the news- 

 papers ; and the freely given support of the local press has further made it 

 possible to find situations for all those mutilated men whose re-education 

 has been finished. The system even provides offers of emploj'ment for men 

 whose re-education is still in course. The wages earned bj'^ the men whom 

 the director has thus placed var\' from 1200 to 2000 francs a year, and this 

 is for this district a high rate. It is noteworthy that all these mutilated 

 men have better situations than they had before the war. ]\Iost of them are 

 gardeners, a few foremen on farms or managers. 



The ScJiool of Cooperage and Distillins[ at Saintes has re-educated four- 

 teen mutilated men and is now re-educating three. 



The School of Agriculture at Gamhais has received twelve mutilated 

 men and now contains three such. 



The Departmental School of Auch-Beauheu has re-educated ninet3'-six 

 mutilated or wounded men and is now re-educating fort^^-five. Here, as in the 

 school at Ondes. the management of the Servnce of Health has been of great 

 assistance both to recruiting and to working. The chief divisions which 

 have been organized are those of general agriculture, gardening, poultr^'- 

 keeping, cow-keeping, grafting and viticulture, woodwork and smith's 

 work, the di\'ision for the mending of agricultural implements and that for 

 the driving of tractors. It seems also to be useful to revive in the field- 

 workers the elementary knowledge of writing, French and arithmetic 

 which they received in the primary schools and have most frequently for- 

 gotten, in order that they may keep accounts connected with their work, 

 if necessary- the accovmts of a property. The manner in w^hich the pupils 

 apply themselves to the elementary' lessons the^' receive in the various bran- 

 ches of agriculture is the sarest guarantee that these lessons are necessarj'. 

 Manual work occupies them for nearh" five hours a day and is the real ba- 

 sis of their re-education. The practical work is of two kinds : it aims at 

 re-educating the phj^sical functions of a mutilated man and at his readap- 

 tation to agriculture. He needs progressive exercises to give suppleness 

 to his stifi limbs or to give him skill to use them or to use artificial limbs. A 

 series of exercises have this aim. The readaptation of a man to agriculture 

 is accomplished at Beaulieu in the school's annexes by the teaching of va- 

 rious special branches of agriculture chosen in accordance with his physical 

 aptitudes or the knowledge he possesses. 



The same difficulties have had to be overcome as in the other schools, 

 and here again the help of the Service of Health has been useful, thanks to 

 the ver}^ special interest which M. Prost Marechal, director of the Ser^-ice 

 of Health in the 17th region, has taken in the school since the end of Decem- 

 ber 1916. This service filled tbirt^^ vacant places in the school, which is 

 maintained as a fully acti\^e re-educational centre ha^dng from fort}' to 

 fifty pupils. About a hundred wounded men must have passed through 

 Beaulieu and three fourths of them have returned to agriculture. 



