There are some sciences, too, especially certain branches of natural science, which can be pursued by men whose time is mainly taken up by manual work.
The idea of erecting an educational ladder by which all will proceed from the elementary to the secondary school and thence to the University, is a false one.

Any such ladder must continue to be narrow at the top.

It is impossible in any economic conditions that we are likely to see in our time that the majority of our people will be able to devote their whole lives to study until the age at which a University course can be finished.

Indeed, for all classes there is a modern tendency to prolong the school period unduly, to keep boys under the discipline and following the methods of the secondary school until nineteen years of age, so that they finish a University course, which is also becoming more prolonged, after twenty-three, and then at last take up their vocational training.

Neither parents nor the nation can afford to make such a course the normal one.