It was for some time supposed by Government that this was only partially true. That government itself, that is, the Secretariats, was out of touch, was felt and avowed. But it was supposed that this arose from the specialising of function. The work of secretaries had become so difficult, so special, so different from district work, that instead of there being interchange of officers, the secretaries usually passed all their official lives away from actual contact with the realities of the people. There were orders passed that in future this was not to occur, men were to come and go, to do district work for a while, and then secretariat work, bringing to the latter knowledge gained in the former. But it was quickly seen that this had little or no result. If the secretaries were out of touch, the district officers were hardly less so. Government, as a whole, had separated from the people. English and Indian were divided; nothing was gained. What, then, was the difference between the men of the past and those of the present? Let us consider. They went out younger in those days; sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, were the usual ages. The usual age for Haileybury cadets was twenty. Clive, Warren Hastings, Nicholson and John Lawrence went out at eighteen, Henry Lawrence at seventeen, Meadows Taylor at fifteen. Many of the administrators were soldiers first, and they too went out young. Lord Roberts, for instance, landed in India when he was sixteen. Addiscombe cadets joined at sixteen or seventeen. When Haileybury was abolished the average age was raised to twenty-three or more, and at that age it now remains. Thus, as the first year in India is also spent in training out there, a man is now not far from twenty-five before he is allowed to act independently; he used to be twenty-one or less. This is a great difference. In England the age when a boy attains his majority and has full freedom before the law is twenty-one, and in order to elucidate this question I have tried to discover why the law of England fixed twenty-one. In Rome a boy was legally of age as regards his person at fourteen though he had a curator over his property till he was twenty-five. Therefore this age of twenty-one does not come from Roman law. It seems to have arisen from a general consensus of observation that at twenty-one the average young man is fit to be free and should be free. There seems to be about that age a critical mental stage of adolescence corresponding to the physical stage at fourteen. However this may be, there seems to be no doubt that to keep a young man in tutelage till he is twenty-four or twenty-five is bad for him. The powers of initiative and the sense of responsibility which mature at twenty-one atrophy thereafter if not fully used. And no book learning can replace this. Thus nowadays tutelage is too long continued.