Real specialist training should not, however, begin until after the age of seventeen. The age limit is selected for various reasons. Until seventeen, the pupils at the labour school are scholars rather than workers. The fundamental aim of the labour processes in the school is not that of creating values and of contributing to the State budget, but that of conveying instruction. After the age of seventeen, the pupil becomes a worker. He must perform his quota of labour, must play his due part in producing goods for the human community. He can receive specialist instruction only in so far as he has first fulfilled his fundamental duty towards society. For this reason, as is right, specialist instruction for young people after the age of seventeen can only be given out of working hours. With the advance of manufacturing technique we may expect the working day to become less than eight hours, and in this way there will be provided for every member of communist society plenty of time for specialist education. In certain cases, and where persons of unusual talent are concerned, it may prove desirable to make exceptions in the form of exemption from labour for a certain number of years, in order to provide opportunity for study or for research work. If complete exemption from labour should seem undesirable in the social interest, there may be a special reduction of the working hours for such individuals.
82. The University.
At the present time it is still impossible to foresee precisely what character the higher schools for specialist training will assume under communism. They will probably be of various types. There will be places where brief courses will be given. There will be polytechnics and laboratory schools, at which instruction will be furnished while at the same time experimental research is being carried on; in these, all distinction between professors and students will have disappeared. But even to-day we can be perfectly sure that the universities in their present form, with their present professorial staffs, have ceased to be serviceable