Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

332 HISTORY OF THE BANKrecruits for junior clerkships.All told, 413 bank officers hadleft on active service; 279 of these had been granted leave toserve with the first and second contingents, or on homeservice; 69 had been granted leave to join the third contingent;65 men had resigned voluntarily and had been granted retiringallowances with an assurance of reinstatement. The movementof Canadian troops to France, which began early in theyear, created an interesting series of human documents in theform of letters from members of the staff overseas to theirold associates, and the bank decided to make use of these foran occasional publication, Letters from the Front, which thusbecame a first-hand record of the experiences of members ofthe staff in the Great War. The first number was issued onAugust 18, 1915, after some months of collection and preparation.A sad phase of the conflict was the casualtymembers of the staff, which grew longer and longer as the yearwent on. At first these lists contained merely the names oflists ofthose who had died from illness contracted during the severeprocesses of training, but presently deaths on the field ofbattle became a frequent occurrence, and the loss of manya young man, well known to and beloved by his comrades,was mourned by them. The first death benefit paid out ofthe Pension Fund in the case of an officer of the bank whohad fallen in battle was paid on July 16, 1915, to the relativespolicyof Mr. W. H. Fowler, who had been killed in action on May 22.Even during the war, the bank pursued itsof encouragingmembers of the staff to acquire a knowledge ofthe theory of banking. The financial assistance granted tostudents taking courses in banking was continued, and in theexaminations held that year under the auspices of the CanadianBankers' Association two out of the fifteen students whopassed the examinations prescribed in the Fellows' Course,and twenty-two out of the forty-two successful students inthe Associates' Course, were members of the staff of TheCanadian Bank of Commerce both the Fellows and fifteenof the Associates taking honours.