"The administration has nothing to do with determining that point. Every man determines it for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, the utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural aptitude really is. Usually, long before he is mustered into service, a young man has found out the pursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a great deal of knowledge about it, and is awaiting impatiently the time when he can enlist in its ranks." "Surely, it can hardly be that the number of volunteers for any trade is exactly the number needed?" "The supply is always expected to equal fully the demand. The rate of volunteering is closely watched. It is the business of the administration to equalise the attractions of the trades, so that the lightest trades have the longest hours, while an arduous trade, such as mining, has very short hours." "How is the class of common labourers recruited?" "It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first three years. If a man were so stupid as to have no choice as to occupation, he would simply remain a common labourer." "Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation, I suppose he has to stick to it the rest of his life?" "Not necessarily," replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and merely capricious changes of occupation are net permitted, every worker is allowed, of course under regulations and in accordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for another industry which he thinks would suit him better than his first choice. It is only the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change. Of course, transfers or discharges are always given when health demands them." "How are the brain-workers selected? That must require a very delicate sort of sifting process?" "So it does, the most delicate possible test; so we leave the question whether a man shall be a brain or handworker entirely to him to settle. At the end of the three years of common labour, if a man feels he can do better work with his brain than his muscles, the schools of technology, medicine, art, music, histrionics, and higher liberal learning are open to him without condition. But anyone without the special aptitude would find it easier to do double hours at his trade than try to keep up with the classes. This opportunity for a professional training remains open to every man till the age of thirty." _IV.--The New Plan_ Dr. and Mrs. Leete were startled to learn I had been all over the city alone. "You must have seen a good many new things," said Mrs. Leete, as we sat down to table. "I think what surprised me as much as anything was not to find any stores in Washington Street, or any banks of State. What have you done with the merchants and bankers?"