mushrooms, and those in existence are
filled to overflowing. In the same measure the number of students at the
universities, at the chemical and physical laboratories, at the art
schools, trade and commercial schools and the higher schools of all
sorts for women are on the increase. In all departments, without
exception, there is a tremendous overcrowding, and the stream still
swells: fresh demands are constantly raised for the establishment of
more gymnasiums and high schools to accommodate the large number of
pupils and students.[237] From official and private sources warnings
upon warnings are issued, now against the choice of one then against
that of another career. Even theology, that a few decades ago threatened
to dry up for want of candidates, now receives its spray from the
superabundance, and again sees its livings filled. "I am ready to preach
belief in ten thousand gods and devils, if required, only procure me a
position that may support me"--that is the song that re-echoes from all
corners. Occasionally, the corresponding Cabinet Minister refuses his
consent to the establishment of new institutions of higher education
"because those in existence amply supply the demand for candidates of
all professions."

This state of things is rendered all the more intolerable by the
circumstance that the competitive and mutually destructive struggle of
the bourgeoisie compels its own sons to seek for public places.
Furthermore, the ever increasing standing army with its swarms of
officers, whose promotion is seriously paralyzed after a long peace,
leads to the placing of large numbers of men in the best years of their
lives upon the pension lists, who thereupon, favored by the State, seek
all manner of appointments. Another swarm of lower grade in the army,
takes the bread from the mouths of the other stratas. Lastly, the still
larger swarm of children of the Imperial, State and municipal officials
of all degrees are and can not choose but be trained especially for such
positions in the civil service. Social standing, culture and
pretensions--all combine to keep the children of these classes away from
the so-called low occupations, which, however, as a result of the
capitalist system, are themselves overcrowded.

The system of One Year Volunteers, which allows the reduction of the
compulsory military service to one instead of two or three years for
those who have obtained a certain degree of education and can make the