the
practice appears to have been common of giving diplomas to unfit
persons, who afterwards found their way into the professions. Our
schools are national institutions, and to have passed their tests is a
proof of special abilities not to be questioned.

"This opportunity for a professional training," the doctor continued,
"remains open to every man till the age of thirty is reached, after
which students are not received, as there would remain too brief a
period before the age of discharge in which to serve the nation in
their professions. In your day young men had to choose their
professions very young, and therefore, in a large proportion of
instances, wholly mistook their vocations. It is recognized nowadays
that the natural aptitudes of some are later than those of others in
developing, and therefore, while the choice of profession may be made
as early as twenty-four, it remains open for six years longer."

A question which had a dozen times before been on my lips now found
utterance, a question which touched upon what, in my time, had been
regarded the most vital difficulty in the way of any final settlement
of the industrial problem. "It is an extraordinary thing," I said,
"that you should not yet have said a word about the method of
adjusting wages. Since the nation is the sole employer, the government
must fix the rate of wages and determine just how much everybody shall
earn, from the doctors to the diggers. All I can say is, that this
plan would never have worked with us, and I don't see how it can now
unless human nature has changed. In my day, nobody was satisfied with
his wages or salary. Even if he felt he received enough, he was sure
his neighbor had too much, which was as bad. If the universal
discontent on this subject, instead of being dissipated in curses and
strikes directed against innumerable employers, could have been
concentrated upon one, and that the government, the strongest ever
devised would not have seen two pay days."

Dr. Leete laughed heartily.

"Very true, very true," he said, "a general strike would most probably
have followed the first pay day, and a strike directed against a
government is a revolution."

"How, then, do you avoid a revolution every pay day?" I demanded. "Has
some prodigious philosopher devised a new system of calculus
satisfactory to all for determining the exact and comparative value of
all sorts of service, whether by brawn or brain, by hand or voice, by
ea