about my own period to discuss it intelligently."

"There is something in that," replied the doctor. "Meanwhile, you see
that great building with the dome just across the square? That is our
local Industrial Exchange. Perhaps, seeing that we are talking of what
you are to do to make yourself useful, you may be interested in learning
a little of the method by which our people choose their occupations."

I readily assented, and we crossed the square to the exchange.

"I have given you thus far," said the doctor, "only a general outline of
our system of universal industrial service. You know that every one of
either sex, unless for some reason temporarily or permanently exempt,
enters the public industrial service in the twenty-first year, and after
three years of a sort of general apprenticeship in the unclassified
grades elects a special occupation, unless he prefers to study further
for one of the scientific professions. As there are a million youth, more
or less, who thus annually elect their occupations, you may imagine that
it must be a complex task to find a place for each in which his or her
own taste shall be suited as well as the needs of the public service."

I assured the doctor that I had indeed made this reflection.

"A very few moments will suffice," he said, "to disabuse your mind of
that notion and to show you how wonderfully a little rational system has
simplified the task of finding a fitting vocation in life which used to
be so difficult a matter in your day and so rarely was accomplished in a
satisfactory manner."

Finding a comfortable corner for us near one of the windows of the