Now this expense of training is highly relevant not only to “what is,” but to “what should be.”  It includes, it should be observed, a negative as well as a positive element; a long period of waiting before income begins, as well as the actual outlay on educational and other charges.  When the burden both of the waiting and the positive costs must be borne either by the individual or the family, there are few people who would seriously dispute that this goes to justify, on grounds of fairness as well as of expediency, a higher level of annual remuneration later on; though many people would doubtless argue that the amenities and dignities of the professions should be taken into account on the other side.  But the same consideration makes it a matter of legitimate doubt whether it would be desirable, even as an ideal, that the community should provide so completely the costs of training and of maintenance in the waiting period, as to make it no longer “fair” that the individual should be remunerated more highly than workers in less expensive occupations.  For this would mean that more labor would be absorbed in the former employments than in principle would be socially desirable, for reasons which the argument of the next chapter will make plain.  But the most desirable number of doctors, barristers, teachers, etc., is not a thing which can be settled on purely economic grounds, and it is unprofitable to carry further this particular line of thought.  Few people would advocate, as an ultimate ideal, that the remuneration of the professional grades of labor should exceed that of lower grades by more than the extra expense of training and waiting they involve.  That the excess is usually greater than this at the present time seems very probable:  though it is a matter on which it is very hard to generalize.  But it would certainly be far greater than it is if the principle of laissez-faire ruled supreme in these affairs.  Fortunately it does not, and has never done so.  Even before the days of free elementary education, the endowment of education was not unknown.  The ancient public schools and universities, which have come down to us from the Middle Ages, are a standing witness to what in this field a far poorer community thought fit to do.  Their systems of scholarships and exhibitions, no less than their courts and towers, deserve our notice.  For these were designed to form what we now call “a ladder” by which talent could climb from the humblest origins to the callings which then seemed the summit either of spiritual or of worldly ambition.

This reference to “talent” makes it well to consider here a factor which necessarily complicates, though it does not substantially affect, the whole argument of the present chapter.  There are differences of natural ability, which no education or training can obliterate, which it should rather be their business to excite.  These differences are associated to a great extent with differences of occupation; they