may likewise, under suitable regulations and not too
frequently, obtain a transfer to an establishment of the same industry
in another part of the country which for any reason he may prefer.
Under your system a discontented man could indeed leave his work at
will, but he left his means of support at the same time, and took his
chances as to future livelihood. We find that the number of men who
wish to abandon an accustomed occupation for a new one, and old friends
and associations for strange ones, is small. It is only the poorer sort
of workmen who desire to change even as frequently as our regulations
permit. Of course transfers or discharges, when health demands them,
are always given."

"As an industrial system, I should think this might be extremely
efficient," I said, "but I don't see that it makes any provision for
the professional classes, the men who serve the nation with brains
instead of hands. Of course you can't get along without the
brain-workers. How, then, are they selected from those who are to serve
as farmers and mechanics? That must require a very delicate sort of
sifting process, I should say."

"So it does," replied Dr. Leete; "the most delicate possible test is
needed here, and so we leave the question whether a man shall be a
brain or hand worker entirely to him to settle. At the end of the term
of three years as a common laborer, which every man must serve, it is
for him to choose, in accordance to his natural tastes, whether he will
fit himself for an art or profession, or be a farmer or mechanic. If he
feels that he can do better work with his brains than his muscles, he
finds every facility provided for testing the reality of his supposed
bent, of cultivating it, and if fit of pursuing it as his avocation.
The schools of technology, of medicine, of art, of music, of
histrionics, and of higher liberal learning are always open to
aspirants without condition."

"Are not the schools flooded with young men whose only motive is to
avoid work?"

Dr. Leete smiled a little grimly.

"No one is at all likely to enter the professional schools for the
purpose of avoiding work, I assure you," he said. "They are 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 s