non-official service showed itself. In munitions, for instance, private
employers were the first to recognize that they had in women-workers a
labor force worth the cost of training. The best of the skilled men in
many cases were told off to give the necessary instruction. The will to
do was in the learner; she soon mastered even complex processes, and at
the end of a few weeks was doing even better than men in the light work,
and achieving commendable output in the heavy. The suffrage
organizations, whenever a new line of skilled work was opened to women,
established well-equipped centers to give the necessary teaching. Not
until it became apparent that the new labor-power only needed training
to reach a high grade of proficiency, did County Councils establish, at
government expense, technical classes for girls and women.

[Illustration: Then--the offered service of the Women's Reserve
Ambulance Corps in England was spurned. Now--they wear shrapnel helmets
while working during the Zeppelin raids.]

Equipment of the army was obviously the first and pressing obligation.
Fields might lie fallow, for food in the early days could easily be
brought from abroad, but men had to be registered, soldiers clothed and
equipped. It was natural, then, that the new workers were principally
used in registration work and in making military supplies.

But in the second year of the war came the conviction that the contest
was not soon to be ended, and that the matter of raising food at home
must be met. Women were again appealed to. A Land Army mobilized by
women was created. At first this work was carried on under a centralized
division of the National Service Department, but there has been
decentralization and the Land Army is now a department of the Board of
Agriculture. It is headed by Miss M. Talbot as director. Under this