Then, too, our haphazard industrial system offers such magnificent opportunities to a young man to get into the wrong place. He is forced by necessity to go early, without the least training or interest, into the first work that offers itself. The dull, specialized routine of the modern shop or office, so different from the varied work and the personal touch which created interest in the past, is the last thing on earth that will mould character or produce responsibility. When the situation with an incentive appears, however, we are as ready as any generation, I believe, to meet it. I have seen too many young men, of the usual futile bringing-up and negligible training, drift idly about from one “job” to another, without apparent ambition, until something happened to be presented to them which had a spark of individuality about it, whereupon they faced about and threw themselves into the task with an energy that brought success and honor,--I have seen too much of this not to wonder, somewhat impiously perhaps, whether this boasted character of our fathers was not rather the result of their coming into contact with the proper stimulus at the proper time, than of any tougher, grittier strain in their spiritual fibre. Those among our elders, who, deploring Socialism, insist so strenuously on the imperfections of human nature, ought not to find fault with the theory that frail humanity is under the necessity of receiving the proper stimulus before developing a good character or becoming responsible. Nor is the rising generation any the less capable of effort when conditions call it forth. I wonder how our critic accounts for the correspondence schools which have sprung up so abundantly within the past fifteen years. They are patronized by large numbers of young men and women who have had little academic training and have gone early into industry. It is true that the students do not spend their time on the Latin grammar; they devote themselves to some kind of technical course which they have been led to believe will qualify them for a better position. But the fact that they are thus willing to devote their spare time to study certainly does not indicate a lack of effort. Rather, it is the hardest kind of effort, for it is directed toward no immediate end, and, more than that, it is superimposed on the ordinary work, which is usually quite arduous enough to fatigue the youth.