letter, members were returned who were pledged
to promote the immediate throwing open of all the Professions to all
who could pass a certain examination; and the first step was taken in
opening all commissions in the Army to competitive examination.

The Professions, however, remained obstinate. Law and Medicine refused
to make the least concession. It was not until an Act of Parliament
compelled them that the Inns of Court, the Law Institute, the Colleges
of Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothecaries consented to admit
all-comers without fees and by examination alone.

Then followed such a rush into the Professions as had never before
been witnessed. Already too full, they became at once absolutely
congested and choked. Every other man was either a doctor or a
solicitor. It was at first thought that by making examinations of the
greatest severity possible the rush might be arrested. But this proved
impossible, for the simple reason that an examination for admission,
necessarily a mere 'pass' examination, must be governed and limited by
the intellect of the average candidate. Moreover, in Medicine, if too
severe an examination is proposed, the candidate sacrifices actual
practice and observation in the Hospital wards to book-work. Therefore
the examinations remained much as they always had been, and all the
clever lads from all the Polytechnics became, in an incredibly short
time, members of the Learned Professions.

There can be no doubt that the Bench and the Bar, that Medicine and
Surgery, owe to the emancipation of the Professions many of their
noblest members. Great names occur to every one which belong to this
and that Polytechnic, and are written on the walls in letters of gold
as an encouragement to succeeding generations. One would not go back
to the old state of things. At the same time there were losses and
there are regrets. So great, for instance, was the competition in
Medicine that the sixpenny General Practitioner established himself
everywhere, even in the most fashionable quarters; so numerous were
solicitors that the old system of a recognised tariff was swept away
and gave place to open competition as in trade. That the two branches
of the law should be fused into one was inevitable; that the splendid
incomes formerly derived from successful practice should disappear was
also a matter of course. And there were many who regretted not only
the loss of the old professional rules and the old incomes, but a