From the very beginning it was Fräulein Hirsch's ambition that her blind soldiers should not have the old monotonous trades of basket-making and broom-making. She wanted them to have a broader field of activity in the world, and so she visited all the factories in Berlin to find out what work a blind man can do. She has her soldiers trained to fill these positions. Now she has forty-five blind men in good munition factory positions, and they work from six to eight hours a day. At first they received 45 pfennigs an hour wages, but this was increased to fifty-five pfennigs an hour. Some of the men put cartridges into frames, and others fill cartridges into pockets. Every night the workers come home to the hospital where they are housed and cared for free.
Every morning from eleven to twelve o'clock the men are given their lessons, and the rest of the day they spend practising them. They learn typewriting and how to become telephone centrals. I saw one young fellow there who had lost both eyes at Verdun. He had been studying typewriting four months and he could take a dictation like a person with sight.
It is forbidden to use a dictagraph in Germany, but Fräulein Hirsch got permission to use it for the blind people. As they had none of these instruments in Germany, Fräulein Hirsch copied the English model and had them made at her dictation.
One of the blind soldiers here has invented an attachment to the typewriter that holds the machine fast when the end of the paper is reached. It is very hard for a blind person to tell when the end of the paper is reached, and they are very apt to go on ticking after the page is done. This invention is a rod with a screw in the front and will undoubtedly be used by the blind typists all over the world.
Another trade the soldiers are taught is cigarette making. German cigarettes are not rolled but the tobacco is stuffed into papers that come already fastened together. The blind men learn this very quickly.
Every province in Germany now issues a pamphlet each week to help the crippled men. These pamphlets are called "From War to Work in Peace," and they contain everything that would interest a crippled man, trades they can pursue, things that they can make if they prefer to stay at home, and where they can sell what they make. They also contain advertisements for employment for crippled men.
Near Berlin they have a farm for one-legged men, and here the one-legged soldiers can go to live and farm. Most of the farmers are men without families, and they intend to live on the farm all the rest of their days.
The German government has drawn up plans to build houses for the crippled men. Sites have been selected and plans have been completed. The houses are to be built near factories where work will be carried on that a crippled man can do. The plans for these houses are very attractive. Some of the houses are single houses, cottage effects with slanting roofs and a little garden. In each settlement there will be a number of large apartment houses, and then one very large house like a hotel where the unmarried men can live.
The rental of these houses will be astonishingly low. For instance a room for a bachelor in the large house will cost from twenty to thirty dollars a year. This includes light and heat, and in some cases furniture. An apartment in the large apartment house will cost from seventy-five to one hundred dollars a year with light and heat. The single houses will be more expensive and will cost about one hundred and fifty dollars a year. Each apartment in the large house will have a little garden, and there will be cafés and libraries where the men and their families can enjoy themselves.
No man is happy unless he has work to do, and the Germans are doing everything that is possible, so that the future will not look too black to the crippled German soldier when he comes home from war.