ble that a man could escape it, he would be
left with no possible way to provide for his existence. He would have
excluded himself from the world, cut himself off from his kind, in a
word, committed suicide."

"Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?"

"Oh, no; it both begins later and ends earlier than the average working
period in your day. Your workshops were filled with children and old
men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to education, and the
period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag, equally
sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The period of industrial
service is twenty-four years, beginning at the close of the course of
education at twenty-one and terminating at forty-five. After
forty-five, while discharged from labor, the citizen still remains
liable to special calls, in case of emergencies causing a sudden great
increase in the demand for labor, till he reaches the age of
fifty-five, but such calls are rarely, in fact almost never, made. The
fifteenth day of October of every year is what we call Muster Day,
because those who have reached the age of twenty-one are then mustered
into the industrial service, and at the same time those who, after
twenty-four years' service, have reached the age of forty-five, are
honorably mustered out. It is the great day of the year with us, whence
we reckon all other events, our Olympiad, save that it is annual."

Chapter 7

"It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service," I
said, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise, for there
its analogy with a military army must cease. Soldiers have all the same
thing, and a very simple thing, to do, namely, to practice the manual
of arms, to march and stand guard. But the industrial army must learn
and follow two or three hundred diverse trades and avocations. What
administrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what trade or
business every individual in a great nation shall pursue?"

"The administration has nothing to do with determining that point."

"Who does determine it, then?" I asked.

"Every man for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, the
utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural
aptitude really is. The principle on which our industrial army is
organized is that a man's natural endowments, mental and physical,
determine what he can work at most profitably to the nation and most
satisfactorily to