ratic country than that, although there were a dozen
degrees of peerage and half a dozen orders of knighthood, there was
not one order reserved for men of science, literature, and art. Feeble
protests from time to time were made against this absurdity, but in
the end it proved useful, because the chief argument against the
continuance of titles of honour in the great debate on the subject, in
the year 1920, was the fact that all through the nineteenth century
the men who most deserved the thanks and recognition of the State were
(with the exception of soldiers and lawyers) absolutely neglected by
the Court and the House of Lords.

Let us consider by what usages, rather than by what rules, the
Professions were barred to the people. In the Church a young man could
not be ordained under the age of twenty-three. Nor would the Bishop
ordain him, as a rule, unless he was a graduate of Oxford or
Cambridge. This meant that he was to stay at school, and that a good
school, till the age of nineteen; that he was then to devote four
years more to carrying on his studies in a very expensive manner; in
other words, that he must be able to spend at least a thousand pounds
before he could obtain Orders, and that he would then receive pay at a
much lower rate than a good carpenter or engine-driver.

At the Bar it was the custom for a man to enter his name after leaving
the University: he would then be called at five or six-and-twenty. A
young man must be able to keep himself until that age, and even
longer, because a lawyer's practice begins slowly. There were also
very heavy dues on entrance and on being called. In plain terms, no
young man could enter at the Bar who did not possess or command, at
least, a thousand pounds.

In the lower branch of the law a young man might, it is true, be
admitted at twenty-one. But he had to pay a heavy premium for his
articles, and large fees both at entrance and on passing the
examination which admitted him. Not much less, therefore, including
his maintenance, than a thousand pounds would be required of him
before he began to make anything for himself. A medical man, even one
who only desired to become a general practitioner, had to work through
a five years' course, with hospital fees. Like the solicitor, he might
qualify for about a thousand pounds.

In all the new Professions, chemistry, physics, biology, zoology,
geology, botany, and the other branches of science, engineering,
mining, survey