A fortune awaits the person who will thus bring genealogy home to the hearts of the common people and make the contemplation of a pedigree a source of daily happiness.

We fear that J. Henry Lea, who has just published a hand-book entitled "Genealogical Research in England, Scotland, and Ireland," misses the point of view. He is a dryasdust, who is concerned about long, dull tables of the probate courts, lists of marriage licenses, and parish registers. He talks as if genealogy were a science—a notion that also troubles a recent writer in the London Spectator.

But if genealogy is to appeal to the masses, it must be an art. Now, the strength of an art is not its grasp of facts, but its flight of imagination. In a science the rule is, abundant data and meager results; in an art, meager data and abundant results.

Tell a scientific genealogist that your grandfather, a Welsh cobbler, arrived in the steerage in 1860, and what do you get? After three years and numerous fees for expenses, you learn that for two centuries the heads of the family had been mechanics or small tradesmen—a disgusting outcome.

Tell an artistic genealogist the same thing, and in three weeks, for a stipulated sum, you have a neat picture of a tree, proving that you are a Tudor, and that the English Tudors got their start by marrying into your family. This is why we set art above groveling science.

What change, if any, has there been in the choice of professions by college graduates in the last twenty years? I was recently asked this question by a New York editor, and was unable to answer him. I have since obtained this information from the advance sheets of the new alumni catalogue, issued to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the university.

I have studied the record of ten classes of the College of Arts, from 1885 until 1894, inclusive; also, of the ten succeeding classes, from 1895 until 1904, inclusive. I find most satisfactory reports have been obtained respecting the occupation of these graduates. The chief results are as follows:

Changes in Occupation.

There are two kinds of occupation which enlisted graduates for the first decade and for the second in practically the same proportions.

One is journalism, which enlisted two per cent in the first decade and two and a half per cent in the second, an increase of only one-half of one per cent.

The other is business in varied forms, which enlisted sixteen and a half per cent of the college graduates in the former decade and sixteen per cent in the latter decade.

On the other hand, three occupations show a decided falling off. The graduates who have become clergymen numbered twenty per cent in the first decade, but only seventeen per cent in the second, a decrease of three per cent.

Those who entered the law were thirty-three per cent in the first decade and twenty-six per cent in the second, a decrease of seven per cent.

Those who became physicians were sixteen and a half per cent in the first decade and fifteen and a half per cent in the second, a decrease of one per cent; being a total decrease in the recruits of these professions of eleven per cent.

Teaching Monopolizes the Increase.

Then comes the surprising fact that a single profession has monopolized the entire increase. The profession of teaching, which has twelve per cent in the ten classes first named, has increased to no less than twenty-three per cent in the ten classes down to the year before last.

The striking fact respecting college graduates is that eleven per cent fewer of them go into law, medicine, and divinity, and this entire eleven per cent have gone into teaching.

What is the explanation? I answer, first, the teaching profession has increased in dignity and reputation, and in no part of the world more than in the region where New York University finds its students.

A second reason is that philanthropic spirits find in teaching to-day, compared with other professions, larger scope than ever before. Law is less altruistic as a profession and more commercial than a generation ago. Theology is waiting for new statements of what to teach and how to teach. Therefore, men who are inclined to teach turn to the common school, the high school, and the college to find scope for influencing others for good.

As further explanation of the vast increase in the number of the teachers required for the higher positions, I can give exact figures for only the year 1905, compared with the year 1900. In 1900 there were enrolled in the high schools of New York City 11,706 students; last year there were enrolled 20,770 students; in other words, they have almost doubled in the space of five years.