th graduates in those first ten
classes, only twenty-four had died. And among all the 315 children,
only twenty-six had died. On the whole, between being the wife of a
Yale or Harvard colonial graduate and being a member of one of the
first ten Smith classes, a modern girl might conclude that the chances
of being a dead one matrimonially in the latter case would be more
than offset by the chances of being a dead one actually in the
former.

This deplorable flippancy would overlook the serious fact that
permanent or even prolonged celibacy on the part of large numbers of
young men and young women is a great social evil. The consequences of
that evil we shall observe later on.[1]

[1] In speaking about celibacy we refer wholly to secular and not at
all to religious celibacy.

In the meantime we return to John and Mary.

While John was doing his last year in engineering school, Mary did a
year of technical study in the New York School of Philanthropy, or in
the St. Louis School of Social Economy, or in the Chicago School of
Civics and Philanthropy, or in the Boston School for Social Workers.

They won't even let you start in "doing good" nowadays without some
training for it. This is wise, considering how much harm doing good
can do.

But how the preparation for life does lengthen itself out!

Mary took a civil-service examination and got a job with the State
Bureau of Labor. She finished her first year with the Bureau at the
same time that John finished his first year with the electrical firm.
She had earned $600. He had earned $480.

There were several hundred other apprentices in the shops along with
John. When he thought of the next year's work at fifty a month and
when he looked at the horde of competing Bachelors of Science in
which he was pocketed, he whitened a bit.

"I must get out of the ruck," he said to himself. "I must get a
specialty. I must do some more preparing."

He began to perceive how long it takes the modern man to grow up,
intellectually and financially. He began to perceive what a tedious
road he must travel before he could arrive at maturity--and Mary!

But he had pluck. "I'll really prepare," he said, "and then I'll
really make good."

A Western university offered a scholarship of $500 a year, the
holder of which would be free to devote himself to a certain
specified technical subject. John tried for the scholarship and got
it, and spent a year chasing electrical currents f