PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 13 



Experience had also gone to show that an officer 

 acquainted with the industries of the Commonwealth, and 

 having experience in technical education, should be 

 appointed to take control of the training, and be respon- 

 sible to the Minister for its efficiency. A Director was 

 accordingly appointed, who immediately proceeded to replan 

 and reorganise the system of training. The reorganised 

 scheme was approved of and was put into effect on the 10th 

 April, 1919, and has been in operation since. It came not 

 a moment too soon, because the men were then arriving in 

 Australia at the rate of 30,000 per month, and large num- 

 bers weekly were making application for training. The 

 remarks which follow throughout this address apply mainly 

 to the reorganised scheme. 



It must not be allowed to appear, however, that in decid- 

 ing to devote this account to the scheme as reorganised, 

 that what had been done previously by the Department is 

 unworthy of any attention. As a matter of fact, the funda- 

 mentals of everything of any importance done since the 

 earliest regulations of the Department were framed, were 

 decided upon partly on the recommendations of the con- 

 ferences already mentioned, and were largely influenced 

 by the splendid imagination and administrative powers 

 possessed by the small body of men who first had to do 

 with the direction and control of the department. The 

 re-planning of a system of training early in April, 1919* 

 was merely the crystallising into practical working form 

 of the valuable experience gained during the first years of 

 the Department's operations. The commencement of the 

 reorganised scheme of vocational training marked a stage 

 of positive achievement in the shape of a workable system 

 with a clearly recognisable objective, with its machinery 

 for working out the problems to be faced apparently well 

 planned out and with a clear understanding of the external 



