Many distinguished men have been journalists, from Charles Dickens downward.  Nearly all the novelists have dabbled with journalism; and, since all of us cannot be novelists, the young man might reflect that there are editor, sub-editors, assistant editors, news-editors, leader writers, descriptive writers, reviewers, dramatic critics, art and music critics, wanted for every paper.  He could become a journalist and he could rise to the achievement of these ambitions.

At first he rose a very little way, despite his ambition, because in every branch of letters imperfect education is an insuperable obstacle.  Still he could become news-editor, descriptive reporter, paragraph writer, and even, in the case of country papers, editor.  Sometimes he passed from the office of the journal to that of one of the many societies, where he became secretary and succeeded in getting his name associated with some cause, which gave him some position and consideration.  Whether he succeeded greatly or not, his whole object was to pass from the class which has no possible future to the class for which everything is open.  His sons would be gentlemen, and if he could only find the necessary funds, they should make what he had been unable to make, an attempt upon the prizes of the State.

This was the situation at the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century.  It is summed up by saying that all the avenues to honour and power were closed and barred to the lad who could not command a thousand pounds at least.  Let us pass on.

Most thoughtful people have considered the growth and development of the great educational movement whose origin belongs to the nineteenth century; whose development so profoundly affects the history of our own.

It began, like the spread of scientific knowledge, and the reforms in the Old Constitution, and everything else, with the introduction of railways.  Before the end of the century the country was covered with schools, as it was also covered with railways.  There was hardly a man or woman living when the nineteenth century ended who could not read; there were few indeed who did not read.  But the school course naturally taught little beyond the elements and was already completed when the pupil reached his fourteenth year.  He was then taken from school and put to work, apprenticed—­set to something which was to be his trade.  Clever or stupid, keen of intellect or dull, that was to be the lot of the boy.  He was set to learn how to earn his livelihood.

About the year 1885 or 1890—­no exact date can be fixed for the birth of a new idea—­began a very remarkable extension of the educational movement.  It was discovered by philanthropists that something ought to be done with the boys after they had left school.  The first intentions seem to have been simply to keep them out of mischief.  Having nothing to do the lads naturally took to loafing about the streets, smoking bad tobacco, drinking, gambling,