After he had been restored to physical and mental health in the hospital any soldier who was permanently disabled was given the opportunity of reëducating himself, if necessary, in order that he might continue to take a self-supporting part in the work of the world. The nation had pledged itself thus to care for its disabled defenders. With the exception of Canada, the United States was the only country to make this duty, from the first, the affair of the whole people, functioning through the Government. By act of Congress, the work of re-training war cripples was placed in the charge of the already existing Board of Vocational Education, whose agents would get into touch with the disabled men as soon as they arrived from France, tell them that the nation would engage to make them economically efficient again and show them that their rehabilitation depended only upon their own desire and energy. The crippled soldier could choose any line of work, agriculture, industry, commerce, any of the professions, and either add to the training he had previously acquired, or, if it was necessary, undertake a new kind of occupation. There lay before him the possibility of a variety of education that ranged from six months of shop work to a complete college course of four years. Whatever artificial limbs or appliances he needed were supplied and if he were short of cash a civilian outfit was furnished. Until this training was completed his pay continued at the same rate as during his last month of active service, or it equaled, if this were greater, the monthly sum to which he was entitled under the War Risk Insurance law. Injured men in all branches of the nation’s defense who needed this reëducation were made to feel that in no sense were they receiving charity but that the country was only, and gladly, discharging a sacred obligation. Educational institutions all over the land offered their coöperation and the use of all their facilities in the carrying out of this scheme of re-training and so also did shops and factories and industrial and commercial bodies of all sorts. A few months after the wounded began to return about 13,000 men had registered with the Federal Board for Vocational Education and it was estimated that there would probably be about 10,000 more who would need to share in the benefits of the plan. CHAPTER VI THE WELFARE OF THE SOLDIERS