intended for those with special aptitude for the branches they
teach, and any one without it would find it easier to do double
hours at his trade than try to keep up with the classes. Of course
many honestly mistake their vocation, and, finding themselves
unequal to the requirements of the schools, drop out and return
to the industrial service; no discredit attaches to such persons,
for the public policy is to encourage all to develop suspected
talents which only actual tests can prove the reality of. The
professional and scientific schools of your day depended on the
patronage of their pupils for support, and 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