It has occurred to many of our young Canadians that there are very few positions attainable to us as Canadians really worth striving for. We are so peculiarly situated, that we seem to be in a large measure debarred from obtaining positions which would ordinarily fall to the lot of those attaining eminence among five millions of people. To become a member of a Provincial Legislature is, perhaps, the first position ambitious young men ordinarily aspire to; and while the position itself is really honorable, and also one of usefulness, yet it is not wholly satisfactory. As to becoming an M.P., and spending three dreary months or so in Ottawa, it is not a desirable situation. In fact, most aspiring young Canadians, who come from good homes, do not take kindly to the idea of being forcibly banished for three months out of the twelve. In Washington, on the other hand, since consuls and _charges d’affaires_ of all civilized nations are resident there, it naturally follows that that capital must be the place of social activity and the like, and a place where one can meet persons worth knowing, and who are wholly different from ourselves. To become a judge, no doubt, is the aspiration of many young Canadians, and not for a moment would any one attempt to decry the desirableness of that honorable position. Yet the fact is, that we have altogether too many young men aspiring for legal positions. “Too many lawyers in Canada by three-fourths” is heard among us as common everyday talk. Since Canada has no foreign consular service, all consularships are squarely and flatly out of our reach. Bayard Taylor began as a boy tramping over Europe on foot, and gave the world his boyish volume of “Views Afloat,” which is quite as readable to-day as when first penned. And he kept on travelling until he became quite familiar with most of the languages of modern Europe. Then a consulship was given him, and he really obtained a position worth working for. At different courts he became the representative of the great American nation, and enjoyed social advantages which can fall only to the lot of persons thrown in contact, as he necessarily was, with people from every quarter of the globe. Finally he became ambassador at Berlin, and enjoyed the highest honors there. There he died, and his body was sent back to his American home, having been accorded especial honors by the German court. Here was a career, it appears to the writer, which was really worth striving for. He was not a lawyer, nor in any wise specially educated in any particular specialty, but yet with the career open to him, by dint of his own push and good common-sense, he really rivalled in position any of those among us who make political fights to get to Ottawa, or pore over the midnight oil to become eminent in law. And what is true in Mr. Taylor’s case is equally true in the case of many representatives who to-day are the accredited representatives of the American Government at the court of St. James.