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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2014
As the trend toward total war creates an ever increasing demand for manpower, the necessity for establishing a programme for the rehabilitation of the physically handicapped becomes a national necessity. Industry is forced to employ marginal workers and to plan conservation of manpower. Rehabilitation, therefore, can no longer be regarded solely as a welfare measure designed to salvage the morale of the disabled. The handicapped person is a valuable person; he must be rehabilitated because the nation needs him. He must be vocationally trained, not in some diverting handicraft, but in skills that will fit him for a place in war-time industry.
The problem of the handicapped is essentially that of vocational maladjustment caused by social and economic prejudices. These prejudices are based on false concepts of working capacity which have developed social attitudes that serve to handicap the disabled in their efforts to earn a livelihood. Instead of utilizing their capacity for productive work, society has attempted to compensate them by providing relief.
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