Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/123

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A THOUSAND YEARS HENCE.
105

who were in need. Advances were made, in money or clothing, as required by the youth on quitting school. This was at first from funds supplied to the State's use in this way by the charity organization of the time. But eventually, when there was a satisfactory and reliable regularity established in the final repayments of these advances, the system was made the subject of a special trust. A great ledger of the State, in short, was opened for these national advances; and when the assisted youth afterwards repaid his loan, he was awarded a medal which was often long preserved as an honoured heirloom, even in the most prosperous families. These repayments, principal and interest, became at last so regular as to justify, as I have said, the application of the special trust system. By charging the borrowers a a slightly higher interest than was paid upon the trust stock, the comparatively small loss from the defaulting, or the exceptionally unlucky, was covered, and the trust became self-paying. As every honest or willing youth of either sex could thus always fall back upon the ways and means to get on in the world, the whole society moved forward by so much the quicker and better pace.

Progress by Speciality of Study.

As subdivision of labour has been so fruitful in the business field, so did it prove also when increasingly applied, in those busy times, to other departments of work, and especially to the great field of science. But science itself became more and more associated with ordinary business, the latter, in most cases,