PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 21 



oach for the most suitable calling than even on the actual 

 training itself, though the way in which the latter was 

 carried out was important enough to demand the greatest 

 care. The selection of callings for the injured presented 

 the most difficult part of the problem. With these men it 

 was not so much the question of what they were naturally 

 most fitted for mentally and aptly, but of what, in view of 

 their disabilities, they could work at. Fortunately, from 

 the first it was a principle in selecting that, even with 

 these men, taste and aptitude were not overlooked, and 

 unless medical opinion was against it, the men were 

 encouraged to try and qualify, in spite of the handicap of 

 physical disability, for a calling which they were naturally 

 fitted by aptitude and mental capacity to follow. The 

 wisdom of this course has been justified by results. The 

 number of injured men who have failed to make the neces- 

 sary progress in some kind of calling, and by so doing keep 

 on the road to final arrival into useful civil life, is surpris- 

 ingly small. In the early days of repatriation, it was 

 expected that it would be necessary to establish permanent 

 national workshops in each State for the permanent employ- 

 ment of the injured who failed to reach a standard of 

 admission as ordinary workers under the usual conditions 

 of civil employment. So few are the men listed as residuals 

 of the existing scheme of training, that establishments of 

 this kind now appear to be quite unnecessary. At the most, 

 all that will be necessary will be the establishment of a 

 school in each State providing a few courses of training 

 lasting over a fair number of years, and leading to the men 

 taught therein qualifying to carry on special small home 

 industries. 



Under the conditions of control, first by the War Council, 

 and later by the Repatriation Department, the selection 

 of suitable callings for injured men was carried out by 

 Vocational Training Committees. These Committees were 



