yclists' Union alone contained no fewer than 20,000 members.

Figures may mean anything. It is, however, significant that in a
population of five millions which gives perhaps 700,000 young men
between fifteen and twenty, of whom about 100,000 were below the rank
of craftsmen and 100,000 above, there should have been found a few
years after the introduction of the system about 70,000 youths wise
enough and resolute enough to join these classes.

It must be owned that only the more generous spirits--the nobler
sort--were attracted by the Polytechnics. They were a first selection
from the mass. Of these, again, another selection was made--those few
who studied the things which at first sight appeared to be least
useful. Everyone who knew a craft could see the wisdom of acquiring
perfection in his trade; everyone who was a clerk, or who hoped to
become a clerk, could see the advantage of learning shorthand,
book-keeping, French and German. What did that boy aim at who studied
Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, matriculated and took his degree at the
London University, then an examining body only? Why did he learn time
things? He did not learn them, remember, in the perfunctory way in
which a public-school boy generally works through his subjects; he
learned as if he meant to know these subjects; he devoured his books;
he tore the heart out of them; he compelled them to give up their
secrets. He had everything to get for himself, while the public-school
boy had everything given to him.

When it was done, when he had acquired as much knowledge as any
average boy from the best public school, when he had read in the Poly
Reading Room all that there was to read, what was he to do? For when
he looked about him he saw, stretching before him, fair and stately,
the long avenues which led to distinction; but before each there was a
toll-gate, and at the gate stood a man, saying, 'Pay me first a
thousand pounds. Then, and not till then, you shall enter.'

Alas! and he had not a sixpence--he, or his parents. And so perforce
he must stand aside, while other lads, without his intellect and
courage, paid the money, and were admitted.

There was but one outlet. He might become a journalist. He had learned
shorthand, a necessary accomplishment; therefore, he got an
appointment as reporter and general hand on a country paper. Such a
youth in these years of which we write was uncommon, but he very soon
became much more common. The charm of l