The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1918-01-19

the hospital did the same thing on
almost the same day.
Feared Loss of Pensions.
The hospital staff could not under
stand it. Later-much later-after a
good many of jeans friends had per-
force been discharged from the hos
pital, the staff discovered the explana-
ton: Jean and his mates thought that
they had found the string tied to the
offer. "As soon as you learn a new
trade they'll take away your pension"
was the whisper that had run like
wildfire through the wards. Even the
most positive denials failed to coun-
teract its effects altogether, and a good
many European soldiers still refuse to
learn, solely because they fear to lose
their pension. They have no desire to
lose n bone by swapping at it's re-
Election in the water.
Jean, however, was convinced in
time. He learned to be a masseur-
as a gymnast he had rerforce been
something of a 'rubber'-and is now
earning quite as much as he ever did
and has far steadier employment than
he ever had.
The United States will of course
meet no such difficulty. Our soldiers
will know all about re-education long
before they are wounded; and they
will know that the insurance bill spe-
officially provides that a soldier shall
suffer no reduction in his compensa-
ton because he learns to work in spite
of a permanent injury. They will
know that no person who had lost his
hand, for instance, vas ever reduced
by Uncle Sam because he learned to
write with the stump.
"Tommy" in Despair.
Thomas Hopkins suffered in an
other way. Thomas was an anemic
d~own-and-outer from the London
slums when he squeezed, or was
squeezed, into the army. A year in
the trenches built him up, and then a
shrapnel mutilated his right arm so
badly that it had to be taken off.
Hopkins was in despair; gifted with
some ambition he had seen a way out
of the slums, and now he seemed about
to be forced back into them with an
added handicap. He would have
snapped at any chance to learn.
But the system was not we'll or
ganiZed in those days, and for weeks
Hopkins had to sit around in a con-
yalescent hospital nursing his despair
until he had slipped back into his old
indolent ways; his muscles had grown
feeble and his joints and tendons stiff.
1t took a long time to rouse his ambi-
ton again and still longer to educate
the sensitiveness of his stump and to
teach him how to use it and how to
use some of the 40 and more attach
ments that have been devised for
use on stumps. He did learn, how
ever, and now runs a typesetting ma
chine in a London newspaper office.
Hopkins was wounded, nearly two
years ago. Nowadays he-and of
course any American-would start re-
education at the very earliest possible
moment. Nowadays, by the way, 1t
has been found necessary to restrict
the hours that a convalescent may
work; or the great majority would
overtax their strength.
Disabled Men Best Teachers.
Another lesson that Europe has
passed on is the necessity of teaching
by instructors who are disabled in the
same way as those they teach. An in
structor with two perfect legs, for in
stance, cannot possibly understand
the despair that brushes a legless man;
whereas a legless teacher by his own
ability inspires his pupils with hope
and hope is the basis of the whole
work. This fact, so obvious when it
is once suggested, was discovered by
accident. Rose LIE Blanc, who had lost
both hands at the wrist by an explo-
sion In a munitions plant, applied to
the o%rthopedlc hospital for food when
starving in the streets of Paris. At
table she showed such skill in using
the stumps of her arms that the pa
tents marveled and tried to initiate
her. The rest followed naturally.
This n girl, who thought her life fin
ished, is now the best teacher for arm
less men in all France. She has re-
created the lives of hundreds.
Many former soldiers are now teach
ers. The fact that they have been
through the mill is an enormous en-
enlargement to the injured.
The choice of work is wide; already
men who have lost one or both arms
or legs are doing excellent work at
photography, movie projecting, electric
wiring, linotype operating, elevator
running, baking, tailoring, drafting,
and many other trades. They play golf,
use sledges, scrub, write and hoe.
Blind Taught Typewriting.
Blind men have also a great range
of work thrown open to them. In
England all of them are taught to
typewrite; and each, on leaving the
school, is given a typewriter, so that
he can also attend to his correspond
ence. To typewrite really seems to
come by nature nowadays. For q
/ froIo 4hnxv aboacA nifhnr mas