ould have had any heart for their work, knowing
that their children, or grand-children, if unfortunate, would be
deprived of the comforts and even necessities of life. It is a mystery
how men with children could favor a system under which they were
rewarded beyond those less endowed with bodily strength or mental
power. For, by the same discrimination by which the father profited,
the son, for whom he would give his life, being perchance weaker than
others, might be reduced to crusts and beggary. How men dared leave
children behind them, I have never been able to understand."

NOTE.--Although in his talk on the previous evening Dr. Leete
had emphasized the pains taken to enable every man to
ascertain and follow his natural bent in choosing an
occupation, it was not till I learned that the worker's
income is the same in all occupations that I realized how
absolutely he may be counted on to do so, and thus, by
selecting the harness which sets most lightly on himself,
find that in which he can pull best. The failure of my age in
any systematic or effective way to develop and utilize the
natural aptitudes of men for the industries and intellectual
avocations was one of the great wastes, as well as one of the
most common causes of unhappiness in that time. The vast
majority of my contemporaries, though nominally free to do
so, never really chose their occupations at all, but were
forced by circumstances into work for which they were
relatively inefficient, because not naturally fitted for it.
The rich, in this respect, had little advantage over the
poor. The latter, indeed, being generally deprived of
education, had no opportunity even to ascertain the natural
aptitudes they might have, and on account of their poverty
were unable to develop them by cultivation even when
ascertained. The liberal and technical professions, except by
favorable accident, were shut to them, to their own great
loss and that of the nation. On the other hand, the
well-to-do, although they could command education and
opportunity, were scarcely less hampered by social prejudice,
which forbade them to pursue manual avocations, even when
adapted to them, and destined them, whether fit or unfit, to
the professions, thus wasting many an excellent
handicraftsman. Mercenary considerations, tempting men to
pursue money-making occupat