f a roadway. He is ignorant of the cost and has never
commanded a squad of workmen.

* If the future advocate or magistrate to be has put up with being a
notary's or lawyer's clerk, he will at twenty-five years of age, even
if he is a doctor of law with his insignia of three "white balls,"
know nothing of the business; he merely knows his codes; he has never
examined pleadings, conducted a case, drawn up an act or liquidated an
estate.

* From eighteen to thirty, the future architect who competes for a
prix de Rome may stay in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, draw plan after plan
there, and then, if he obtains the prix, pass five years at Rome, make
designs without end, multiply plans and restorations on paper, and at
last, at thirty-five years of age, return to Paris with the highest
titles, architect of the government, and with the aspiration to erect
edifices without having taken even a second or third part in the actual
construction of one single house.--

None of these men so full of knowledge know their trade and each, at
this late hour, is expected to act as an expert, improvising,[6369] in
haste and too fast, encountering many drawbacks at his own expense and
at the expense of others, along with serious risks for the first tasks
he undertakes.

Before 1789, says a witness of both the ancient and the modern regime,
[6370] young Frenchmen did not thus pass their early life. Instead
of dancing attendance so long on the threshold of a career, they were
inducted into it very early in life and at once began the race. With
very light baggage and readily obtained "they entered the army at
sixteen, and even fifteen years of age, at fourteen in the navy, and
a little later in special branches, artillery or engineering. In the
magistracy, at nineteen, the son of a conseiller-maitre in parliament
was made a conseiller-adjoint without a vote until he reached
twenty-five; meanwhile, he was busy, active and sometimes was made a
reporter of a case. No less precocious were the admissions to the Cour
des Comptes, to the Cour des Aides, to inferior jurisdictions and into
the bureaus of all the financial administrations." Here, as elsewhere,
if any rank in law was exacted the delay that ensured was not apparent;
the Faculty examinations were only for forms sake; for a sum of money,
and after a more or less grave ceremonial, a needed diploma was obtained
almost without study.[6371]--Accordingly, it was not in school, but in
the profes