that was then left of the old aristocratic regime.

Speaking in general terms--the exceptions shall be noted
afterward--the Professions during the whole of the nineteenth century
were jealously barred and closed in and fenced round. Admission, in
theory, could only be obtained by young men of gentle birth and good
breeding. Not that there was any expressed rule to that effect. It was
not written over the gateway of Lincoln's Inn that none but gentlemen
were to be admitted, nor was it ever stated in any book or paper that
none but gentlemen were to be called. But, as you will be shown
immediately, the barring of the gate against the lad of humble origin
was quite as effectually accomplished without any law, mule, or
regulation whatever.

The professional avenues of distinction which, early in the twentieth
century, were only three or four, had, by the end of the century, been
multiplied tenfold by the birth or creation of new Professions.
Formerly a young man of ambition might go into tho Church, into one of
the two services, into the Law, or into Medicine. He might also, if he
were a country gentleman, go into the House of Commons. At the end of
the century the professional career included, besides these, all the
various branches of Science, all the forms of Art, all the divisions
of Literature, Music, Architecture, the Drama, Engineering, Teaching,
Archaeology, Political Economy, and, in fact, every conceivable
subject to which the mind of man can worthily devote itself.

In all these branches there were great--in some, very great--prizes to
be obtained; prizes not always of money, but of honour: in some of
them the prizes included what was considered the greatest of all
rewards--a Peerage. The country, indeed, was already beginning to
insist that the national distinctions should be bestowed upon all
those--and only upon those--who rendered real services to the State.
One poet had been made a Peer. One man of science had been made a
Privy Councillor, and another a Peer; two painters had been made
baronets; and the humble distinction of Knight Bachelor, which had
been tossed contemptuously to city sheriffs, provincial mayors, and
undistinguished persons who used back-stairs influence to get the
title, was now brought into better consideration by being shared by a
few musicians, engineers, physicians, and others. Nothing could more
clearly show the real contempt in which literature and science were
held in an aristoc