THE H.B. TRIBUNE. MONDAY, JULY 2, 1917. RETURNED SOLDIERS’ TECHNICAL TRAINING.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VII, Issue 213, 2 July 1917, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. MONDAY, JULY 2, 1917. RETURNED SOLDIERS’ TECHNICAL TRAINING.

The technical education of our returned soldiers, and especially ot those who owing to disablements of one kind and another may be unable to think of resuming their old avocations, is one of our most serious post-war problems. Indeed, the problem is already with us, but will, of course, be intensified with rapidly increasing numbers. The question is one which has engaged the attention of the conference of directors and supervisors of technical education held in Wellington last week. Hawke’s Bay, as being very largely a farming community, is no doubt greatly interested in the question of settling returned , soldiers on the land, and the chairman of the conference, Mr. George George, deplored in this connection the lack of provision for training in agriculture. He said that, so far as he knew : the Government had made no provision for training men who were anxious to go on the land but who had no previous experience of farming. However, he understood that the Minister of Agriculture was now considering some such provision, and he threw out as one suggestion “the acquisition by the State of a large block of land, say in the Urewera country, breaking it up and establishing an instructional farm in the centre, where a lot of useful men might be trained.” Although the openmg up of entirely new country would without doubt be, in the interests of the State, the best method of employing the energies of a number of ablebodied men, and, given sufficietly liberal terms, mighj; prove in the end the best for the men themselves, still it may well be doubted whether there would be any very great proportion of would-be soldier-farmers who would care to face the relative isolation involved. In any event, it may be fairly Well assumed that the nuthber of men who will elect 'to adopt rural life as, a permanency will be a comparatively’ small proportion of the whole of those for whom the avenues for earning A Comfortable livelihood will have to be found. The very large majority will prefer to return to urban life, and, in truth, many of them will not be capable of being fitted for anything else.

The question of technical education of the retained soldiers, and, as has been said, particularly of those who may come back to us subjected to new physical disabilities, is, one of outstanding importance. This is not by any means the first time that the subject has been mooted in this column, and we have consistently advocated the establishment of training institutions devoted, in the first instance at any rate, exclusively to returned soldiers. In this connection we notice that Mr. George, the chairman of the conference above mentioned,- admits his conversion to a like point of view. He, said that at one time he had been inclined to oppose the suggestion of a special training college for returned , soldiers, but that he was now inclined to the opinion that such an institution would be best. It was evident, he said —and presumably he was speaking from personal observation —that “the returned men did not care to join in with others in the classes.” He does not explain the grounds of this aversion, but in ah probability they lie to a great extent in the fact that the returned, soldiers are men not only adult in mere years, but with experiences gained and suffered that have made them much older men than the dates of their birth would indicate. It is quite understandable that these men, entering upon an entirely new education, will not care to find themselves placed in apparent competition with those who are learning at the normal time of life, probably retaining the greater receptiveness of youth, both mentally and manually, and at the same time given much to exhibit the impatience, almost amounting to contempt, that youth has for the ineptitude of its seniors. Where ail were striking out from the same footing, on the other hand, and all might well be expected not only to show, but to feel, a real sympathy one with another bom of common sufferings and common sacrifices, there would be no such diffidence of awkwardness and we might confidently hope for the practical exertion of a spirit of mutual help and encouragement. This possibly is not the only thing that may have swayed Mr. George in altering his point of view, but we feel sure that it provides one very real and very natural ground of disinclination on the part of the returned soldier to avail himself of the classes of the ordinary technical schools and colleges. Apart from this, there are many of the artifices adapted peculiarly for disabled soldiers that are probably not taught in the ordinary technical schools, and for which special plant and special teachers might have to be procured. It seems therefore to be essential that, if we are to act fairly by our returned soldiers, we should institute for them special training schools. Having regard to the immense sums spent, and being spent, and still to be spent, in carrying out our part in the destructive phases of war, the expenditure on this constructive scheme, by which we may hope to give a large number of men each many years of useful and contented life,' would be a mere drop in the ultimate bucket of «•* national debt.