its special technic is taken in comparison with music, for example. A generation ago every young woman played the piano. Now she realizes the vanity of expecting to do so well. A generation hence, it may be, she will be convinced that poetry is a difficult art also.

Of course, as I began by saying, the public equally with the artist and writer has the cause of art and letters in its keeping. And so far as knowledge is an advantage in art and letters it is the business of the larger public-not to possess it, to expect which would not only be unreasonable but unnecessary-but to respect it, as it is the business of the "remnant" to exact it. To advocate any peremptory agencies to this end would be as illusory as Mr. Howells shows it to be in his amusing story, "The Critical Bookstore." The philanthropist who sets up this establishment to combine censorship with commercialism apparently deals in fiction exclusively-where certainly the field for both commerce and censure is so vast as perhaps to justify a monopoly of his benevolent efforts. His experiment proves multifariously unsatisfactory, and experiencing a total change of heart he shuts up his shop, and announces his conversion by expressing a repugnance to artificial selection which, even without his experience, we can all share. But he expresses also a resignation to the processes and results of natural selection in which it requires a very considerable amount of optimism to participate. "What is all the worthy family of asses to do," he exclaims "if there are no thistles to feed them?" Is the case so desperate as that? Is, indeed, this family to be regarded as a constant quantity? Why at any rate contribute to keep it so by pampering it with its favorite food? Why not, in a word, deplore the number of asses rather than the failure of the thistle crop? It is, no doubt, less a practical than a sentimental matter, but the more the cultivation of thistles comes to be looked upon with disfavor, whatever the demand for them, the more the taste for them is likely to diminish and even an asinine demand arise for different provender. No one considers morals a matter to be left to natural selection. Does the intellect need less help? The converted critical-bookstore keeper

proceeds to state his view of the Republic of Letters as "a vast, benevolent, generous democracy where every one may have what one likes," and his conception of literature as "the whole world, the expression of the gross, the fatuous, the foolish, as well as the expression and the pleasure of the wise, the fine and the elect." But it is notoriously difficult to keep pace with the zeal of the convert, and one wonders if his ideal in this case is not fundamentally a humane rather than a literary one. How better express the distinction between mere printed matter and literature than by saying the latter is just this: "the expression and the pleasure of the wise, the fine and the elect"? And why not observe the distinction even while remembering the superior claims of human happiness? Perhaps after all some other way may be found of satisfying these claims than by adulterating figs with thistles, or by encouraging the critical inspector to "pass" thistles as figs, especially bearing in mind the tendency-observed by Renan-which the thistles have to get the upper hand. Perhaps after all figs in plenty would become more popular in quarters gradually finding it as uncomfortable to be viewed de haut en bas by the gentle heart as by the arrogant mind.

At all events it is to have in mind some other cause than that of literature, to conceive of it as an absolutely unenclosed domain-the common of civilization, so to say, whose weedy aspects and worn places and rubbish heaps are as legitimate details as its cultivated area. Ought not access to this territory to be made more difficult, as difficult as possible? At least let us have a gate-the strait gate whereby he who has some kind of credentials may enter in, and so far as possible win public opinion to approve the closing up of those other ways accessible to the thief and the robber. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Not the authority of autocracy certainly; nor even that of criticism whose function, as I said, is the exposition of the principles that are the test of standards, so much as the standards themselves which arise insensibly in the mind of the cultivated public and spread in constantly widening circles. Mankind, once more, is wiser than any man, and its correlative

in the case of arts and letters is the public, whose co-operation is quite as important as that of their professional representatives. For it is always to be remembered that the cause of letters, the cause of art, is not that of its practitioners-hardly that of its practice-but of its constituting standards. Just as the cause of mankind is not that of the men who compose it, which it is the weakness of purely material philanthropy to forget. The idea is not a vague one. And since I have ventured to speak of routine France as more sympathetic than devout, I may note

that, so far from being vague, it is an idea which is at the present time being illustrated not only splendidly, supremely, but with that precision which in the world of ideas is a French characteristic. We have before our eyes the demonstration of its definiteness by an entire people animated with the clear consciousness that what counts for them, in this brief interlude of time between two eternities, is not the comfort or even the lives of any or all Frenchmen, but the perpetual renewal of the consecrated oil that feeds the torch of France.

HERE are some facts of life upon which statistics are not available but where none are needed to carry a conviction of their truth. The statement that a great many young men have chosen the wrong business or profession for their life's work can readily be believed, although there is no way of telling just how many such persons there are.

Everybody who reads this article can recall innumerable instances of bright young men who have chosen an occupation for which they are not suited, and by reason thereof have become mere drudges, eking out a precarious subsistence and with life holding out an unattractive future for them.

Such a condition will always exist to some extent, but this is no reason why an attempt should not be made to examine into the problem for the purpose not only of limiting the number of misfits among workers, but also of so organizing our labor resources that the best interests of our country may be subserved, especially at this time when it is necessary to recognize what those interests are and to make preparation to take care of them.

America has in the past been a land of

wonderful opportunities. Our great resources of land in extent and productiveness, the great number of important things to be done, the very youth of our country, have made it possible for many men with limited educational resources and with little constructive preparation to reach a position of high material prosperity. This fact, in the eyes of many persons, has tended to belittle preparation and the intelligent organization of one's powers for life's work. “Abraham Lincoln became a great lawyer with little or no early education" has been the stock argument of all those who have opposed higher educational standards for entrance into the professions. The opinion prevails too generally throughout our country that an American can accomplish without preparation that to which the men of Europe give years of constructive work. It is assumed that the advantages of our natural location and a mythical tremendous reserve power will protect America in any event, and without material loss, against all phases of foreign aggression. Certainly it has not been deemed necessary to marshal our labor resources in time of peace in a way that would mean most for the welfare of the country.

Only in times of war in which America has been involved, and for destructive purposes, has it ever occurred to our people that our young men should be efficiently organized. Will it not be profitable to reflect upon the advantages that may be derived from the marshalling of our young men for really constructive purposes, commensurate and in line with the opportunities that are being thrust upon our country by the exigencies of one of the most devastating cataclysms that has ever visited the human race?

A war, the most destructive in the history of the world, is not only consuming the surplus savings of mankind for generations and centuries past, but is depleting at a terrible rate the three sources for resupplying this wealth, namely, land, labor, and capital.

Those who have visited the battlefields of Europe say that immense tracts of land, the finest and most productive that civilization possesses, have been turned into a desert waste and cannot be reclaimed for any useful purposes in centuries. European countries are losing their men by millions, and the very ones who would have been able to supply most efficiently that important source of wealth, labor. Reliable financial agencies estimate that the war is costing the world more than a hundred millions of dollars each day, and to this extent that other source of European wealth, namely capital, is being depleted.

Basing their judgment upon the experiences after other wars, there are some who feel optimistic that these European countries will quickly recover from their terrible ordeal, but such predictions are at best only a guess. No such expenditures for destructive purposes have ever been made before in history. Never have the original sources for the production of wealth been so impaired. Never before were the existent sources of wealth turned into such unproductive channels, and never has a work so tremendous been contemplated as to turn again these same sources of wealth from their present destructive employment into the productive channels of civilization. Never since the development of the present wonderful Western civilization, which has contributed so much to the comfort and welfare

of mankind, has its entire spirit been so endangered as in this war.

The immense resources of Europe and their former efficient use are bringing to the countries now at war an unprecedented extension of credit; and the war in all probability will last just about as long as this extension of credit continues. But these debts so created will have to be paid, or they will not be paid-in the first case imposing upon the future generations of Europe a tremendous economic handicap, and assuring for a time at least the unquestioned financial supremacy of the creditor countries; in the second case, while causing great hardship to those who have been financing the war, yet so impairing the credit of the debtor countries as ultimately to depose them from any hope of leadership in world affairs. In either event, and for years, America is designated as a leader in the world's trade. Her opportunity has come, but she cannot ignore the fact that there are other progressive nations in the world with resources practically unimpaired that will welcome the chance of turning the present economic revolution to their own advantage.

America cannot afford to rest, she cannot wait. It will not do simply to think about the matter, to make speeches, or to write articles about it. When the war is over the men of European countries will be mobilized, organized, and accustomed to work together. To meet these competitive advantages, some big, constructive programme will have to be thought out and carried out, in order to prepare us for our opportunities and to enable us to make the most of them. Without any attempt to construct the greater programme, which will have to do with the organization of all our resources

land, labor, and capital-it is our object here to suggest a small part of the plan and yet one which must not be ignored if the greater programme is made possible.

Leaving, then, for this larger development the consideration of our land resources, which have certainly been most recklessly used in the past, and our capital resources, of which we will have a superabundance unless they are most diplomatically used, the part of the programme here referred to is a suggestion

for the organization of our men to meet the opportunity not the men who are ordinarily considered under the head of labor (it may become a very serious question whether or not America will not lose her opportunity through the unintelligent handling of her skilled-labor problem) but those who, nevertheless, come under the classification of labor in a very important economic sense, namely, our highly educated young men. How shall we

marshal them for America?

Let us confine ourselves at first to a consideration of the young men in our colleges, not because it necessarily follows that these young men have a monopoly of brains and education, but because they already exist in groups of a nature lending themselves more readily to the organizing methods suggested in our plan.

The average man attends college for two purposes, one being to prepare himself for a more intelligent citizenship, the other to make better preparation for life's work. In the past those callings which have seemed most distinctively American, by reason of unusual opportunities therein, have attracted young men of brains. For instance, inasmuch as many of our public men, including members of Congress and of the cabinet, have, after leaving college, taken up the study of law as a stepping-stone to political preferment, very many young men of the present generation, who have stood out from among their fellows as being of unusual mental endowment, have taken up law with the idea in mind of later entering politics as a career.

Many poor young men, who have had a desire to improve their position in life have gone to college for the purpose of preparing themselves either to become teachers or preachers. The family physician, who is usually a man of social and financial prominence in his community, has appealed to many of our college men as one whose career should be emulated. In other words, when higher education among our young men was less general than it is to-day, the professions were attractive to men of ambition because of the prestige they gave and because many important affairs of American life were intrusted to their care. Even to-day they

are the principal goal of our college men, notwithstanding the fact that many of the bigger things in American life are being performed by business men. Now, and for a considerable period of time, young America's real opportunity will unquestionably lie not in the professions but along trading and commercial lines. If this premise is true, in order that we meet the opportunity as it should be met, the best brains of our country should be centred in developing the new fields open to us.

But how bring the brains and the big business together?

Take, as an example of present conditions, those that exist in the financial district of New York. The deposits in the big banking institutions of this district during the past two or three years have been growing at a tremendous rate. The number of employees that has become necessary to handle the additional work caused thereby has almost doubled. The officers of these institutions have had no time in which to make a careful selection of their new men, for the work had to be done and immediately. The result has been that a great number of these new men are educationally poorly equipped to advance very far in banking work and there is no more pitiful sight than to see a man who is loyal and faithful to his work denied advancement because of his educational limitations. It is true that many of these employees are making heroic efforts at self-education, availing themselves of the means of learning the theoretical and technical details of their profession, as provided by the American Institute of Banking and other agencies, but certainly it would have been better if such technical training could have supplemented a thorough general education. Where to obtain good men for positions in even this desirable profession is at present a problem with bank officers.

On the other hand, one great banking institution has recognized the necessity of improving its organization with educated men, and has inaugurated a system of bringing the college man into connection with its work in a very admirable manner. What this institution is doing for the improvement of its organization should be done on a broader scale for our

country's progressive industries, in providing for them a means of building up organizations to meet the opportunities that have come to them for growth and expansion.

The great demand of the present day is for an agency endowed with sufficient funds, ability, and authority, and governed by ideals of such a broad and patriotic nature, that it can make an exhaustive study of America's needs for maintaining a position of leadership in the world's work, for furnishing to those young men who are best equipped the information as to where they can bend their energies to subserve best the interests of their country and their own mental, moral, and material advancement, and for laying a broad foundation for general vocational guidance.

The proper place to centre such an agency would seem to be where it could best come in contact with the college world, and with developments of a national and international vocational character. For instance, supposing there should be established in New York City, which is a truly educational and commercial centre, a bureau that would study the matters mentioned above. This bureau could well be connected with some foundation or a large institution of learning endowed with its authority, backed by its prestige in both the educational and business world, thereby giving it an ability to make an ideal study of the different vocations involved in the work to be done. There should be two important lines of work carried out by this agency. First, it should make a study of the changing economic conditions and ascertain the fields of activity most important for the development of the greater interests of American industry and commerce. The next questions to answer would be, in what way are educated young men necessary, and how can they be helpful in administering these greater interests? Again, what type of educational preparation is necessary for such men in order to make them effective workers? Next, in what way can those who are best equipped connect with the work to be done? All the information gained by this study should be assembled, analyzed, tabulated, and made ready for use and distribution.

The second big job for our bureau would be to organize in American colleges local agencies, supplementary to and related to the central bureau, headed by local directors, using methods and standards of judgment similar to the central agency, for the purpose of bringing to the young men attending colleges information of the opportunities that exist and suggestions as to the preparation necessary to helpfully and profitably participate in them.

Of course, our central organization need not focus all its time and energy upon international developments. In every industry there are times of progressive development when it is psychologically profitable for progressive men to enter the industry. This development is usually followed by a period of static conservatism where rules of seniority prevail. Such facts are proper for our agency to know. A study should be made of the types of men who have been successful in the past in the various industries and the types necessary to cope successfully with the new conditions. Our agency should be able to recommend how and in what capacity its men should best apply for positions in these industries, it being best in some cases to start at the very beginning of the business, at other times to approach it indirectly. Intelligent inquiry will develop many helpful facts along this line. The different professions should be inquired into for obtaining their status, the best modes of entry, and the best locations in which to work. In other words, our bureau should be prepared to give as nearly complete information as possible upon all those fields of activity which are attractive to young men and which have real opportunities. for them.

In the local organization, established in the various colleges, a different type of work should be done. Equipped with the information of the central organization, the directors of the local bureaus are in a position to make a good start in appraising the abilities of the students with whom they come in contact. These local directors should be men of the highest caliber, of ripe experience, sound judgment, and of that peculiar type of personality required to do the work. They