 work with his brains
than his muscles, he finds every facility provided for testing the reality of
his supposed bent, of cultivating it, and if fit, of pursuing it as his
avocation. The schools of technology, of medicine, of art, of music, of
histrionics, and of higher liberal learning are always open to aspirants without
condition.«
    »Are not the schools flooded with young men whose only motive is to avoid
work?«
    Dr. Leete smiled a little grimly.
    »No one is at all likely to enter the professional schools for the purpose
of avoiding work, I assure you,« he said. »They are intended for those with
special aptitude for the branches they teach, and any one without it would find
it easier to do double hours at his trade than try to keep up with the classes.
Of course many honestly mistake their vocation, and, finding themselves unequal
to the requirements of the schools, drop out and return to the industrial
service; no discredit attaches to such persons, for the public policy is to
encourage all to develop suspected talents which only actual tests can prove the
reality of. The professional and scientific schools of your day depended on the
patronage of their pupils for support, and the practice appears to have been
common of giving diplomas to unfit persons, who afterwards found their way into
the professions. Our schools are national institutions, and to have passed their
tests is a proof of special abilities not to be questioned.
    This opportunity for a professional training,« the doctor continued,
»remains open to every man till the age of thirty is reached, after which
students are not received, as there would remain too brief a period before the
age of discharge in which to serve the nation in their professions. In your day
young men had to choose their professions very young, and therefore, in a large
proportion of instances, wholly mistook their vocations. It is recognized
nowadays that the natural aptitudes of some are later than those of others in
developing, and therefore, while the choice of profession may be made as early
as twenty-four, it remains open for six years longer.«
    A question which had a dozen times before been on my lips now found
utterance, a question which touched upon what, in my time, had been regarded the
most vital difficulty in the way of any final settlement of the industrial
problem. »It is an extraordinary thing,« I said, »that you should not yet have
said a word about the method of adjusting wages. Since the nation is the sole
employer, the government must fix
