Learned profession

“ Let the profession of your choice be emphatically your life-work. Direct to its study the best powers of your mind. In your professional career propose to yourself an exalted aim and put in its service a persevering fidelity. ”

“ While training for the profession of learning is regarded as the type of culture, as a liberal education, that of a mechanic, a musician, a lawyer, a doctor, a farmer, a merchant, or a railroad manager is regarded as purely technical and professional. ”

“ Might not, I say, seven years of the actual work, in the susceptible period of life, make a preacher of no mean power, without the grammar-school, without the Arts classes, without the Divinity Hall?
What, then, do we gain by taking such a roundabout approach to our professional work? The answer is twofold:
First, as regards the profession itself. Nearly every skilled occupation, in our time, involves principles and facts that have been investigated, and are taught, outside the profession; to the medical man are given courses of chemistry, physiology, and so on. ”

“ Teaching may be “the noblest of professions and the sorriest of trades,” but as long as our standards of entrance are so low and the number of exits so many, teaching cannot be in its strictest sense a profession. It is far behind medicine or law, and to a large number of persons it is only a trade or a temporary occupation. ”

“ When I consider how each of these Professions are crouded with Multitudes that seek their Livelihood in them, and how many Men of Merit there are in each of them, who may be rather said to be of the Science, than the Profession ”

“ Let us then throw a hasty glance upon some of the great activities that claim men's attention, and discover some of the openings awaiting you.
The teaching profession will draw heavily upon your ranks—that profession, full and rich in opportunities for usefulness beyond any and all others, is more and more looking for you, and waiting impatiently for your full equipment and thoro readiness. All of the higher positions must come to you and others like you. No others are, or will be, adequately prepared. ”

“ As an illustration of what I mean: the scientist, or even the college professor, who has devoted thirty years of life to study, can enter his profession from the top, while the business man and financier, for whom the accumulation of wealth is a desideratum, or the lawyer and the doctor, who must command a practice, or the minister, who needs a congregation, must, with the same period of intellectual infancy, enter it from the bottom and devote a few more years to the climbing process. ”

“ At a period of life, when many men retire from active business, I commenced the study of a new profession. My mind was not prepared to receive instruction through the ordinary process, and I was, by necessity, obliged to be, in a great measure, my own tutor. ”

“ And the second vow that I should urge these graduates to take is the vow of fidelity to the spirit of their calling. We have heard a great deal in recent years about making education a profession. I do not like that term myself. Education is not a profession in the sense that medicine and law are professions. It is rather a craft, for its duty is to produce, to mold, to fashion, to transform a certain raw material into a useful product. And, like all crafts, education must possess the craft spirit. ”

“ PRACTICAL EDUCATION ADVOCATED. I desire again to say that I would be pleased to see more of our young men learning trades instead of trying to learn professions, such as the profession of law, or of medicine, or other professions. ”

“ We are compelled to specialize at last in order to forge ahead, but it is more important to be a man, round, full, rich in contents, than to be an expert lawyer, physician, or mining engineer. The early and rigid specialization, sometimes extending even down into the high school, tends to sacrifice the man to the profession. ”

“ This fancy has some truth, but more of nonsense. “Men at some time are masters of their fates.” Create your place in life and fill it, or adapt yourself to the best place you can find. The choice of occupation is important, but filling well the profession chosen is more important. Turn your [Pg 233] knowledge and power to the performance of to-day’s duty. ”

“ And doubt not that in the active life before you, you will find abundant opportunity for such service to your fellowmen as the plan of all creation thus summons you to render. Those who have chosen their profession can easily discern the particular benefit that in its exercise they can confer on others. Make the doing of that good your main design. True, it is by your labour you must live, and it would not be right or wise to forget this aspect of the case. ”

“ Not to keep pace with it is to fall behind, to become inefficient practitioners in the professions you have adopted. You will, therefore, make yourselves acquainted with what the giants in your profession are doing, the discoveries they are making, the inventions they are introducing. But, while all of you will make a thorough acquaintance with your own profession or work, whatever it may be, your first duty, you will have many hours of leisure in which to use your knowledge for the benefit of the community amongst which you may be placed. You have received a liberal education. ”

“ By attempting therefore to teach young gentlemen every thing, we make the most of them mere smatterers in science. In order to qualify persons to figure in any profession, it is necessary that they should attend closely to those branches of learning which lead to it. ”

“ The Profession to which you belong is the portal to all those places of power, honour, and emolument. In that Profession knowledge and industry are almost sure to attain distinction and pre-eminence. It may be said men have risen to eminence at the bar without the aid of lectures, or the laborious study we now propose. ”

“ But if this is the first matter to be considered in deciding upon a profession, it is by no means the last, and the practical considerations of a fair return for good work, bread and butter for a man and his family, the certainty or uncertainty of employment,—such questions as these must have their full share of attention. ”

“ First place, we ought to insist that folks call us 'realtors' and not 'real-estate men.' Sounds more like a reg'lar profession. Second place—What is it distinguishes a profession from a mere trade, business, or occupation? What is it? Why, it's the public service and the skill, the trained skill, and the knowledge and, uh, all that, whereas a fellow that merely goes out for the jack, he never considers the-public service and trained skill and so on. ”

“ Graduates in law, your ancient and honourable profession stands second to none in the demands that it makes upon intellect and perseverance and m the dignities and rewards that it offers to the successful. Your daily work will be of the widest interest, the studies connected with that work of endless variety. ”

“ With such advantages they devote nearly ten of the best years of life to preparing themselves for their profession; and to secure the public from unqualified members of these professions, none can enter them until examined by a competent body, who certify to their due preparation for their duties. ”

“ Then, under the advice of the teacher, the pupil writes to some man well known in the profession of his choice—some lawyer, mining engineer, doctor or contractor—explaining what he is doing, and asking for advice. ”

“ Enough men of character, however, are entering the field through these better schools to ensure the upholding of those lofty ideals that have characterized the profession in the past and which are essential to our continued progress. ”

“ Learning was now beginning to differentiate itself from the ecclesiastical profession, and to become a definite vocation in its various branches. Crowds of students flocked to the seats of learning, and, as travelling scholars, earned a precarious living by begging or "professing" medicine, assisting the illiterate for a small fee, or working wonders, such as casting horoscopes, or performing thaumaturgic tricks. ”

“ If it be true, that a profession which has for its object the saving of human life and the prevention of human suffering; which calls forth the noblest qualities of the mind, enlarges its sympathies, and tends to clear it of prejudice and error; which brings us in direct and intimate relation with our suffering fellow-creatures, and by giving us an insight into human nature under every form and every aspect, enables us to learn wisdom from the dearly bought experience of others,—I say, if such a profession be worthy of your choice, you may be truly thankful for the selection you have made. ”

“ Evidently the logic of the famous passage is this that whereas every age has its peculiar and appropriate temper, that profession or employment is selected for the exemplification which seems best fitted, in each case, to embody the characteristic or predominating quality. ”

“ Accordingly, as the tract of 4 knowledge has widened, and the creative opportunities involved in conducting a young person over it have correspondingly become apparent, the profession of teaching has risen to a notable height of dignity and attractiveness. ”

“ The teaching profession is the one from which naturally it will be easiest to obtain returns. Recruited as it is from every rank of life except the aristocracy, and charged with the training for every rank of life—except, again, the aristocracy, who owe little of their education to their governesses—it should present to us through its accounts a corresponding variety of standard of living. ”

“ The Place of Vocational Aims in Education.—Bearing in mind the varied and connected content of the vocation, and the broad background upon which a particular calling is projected, we shall now consider education for the more distinctive activity of an individual. 1. An occupation is the only thing which balances the distinctive capacity of an individual with his social service. To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure an opportunity to do it is the key to happiness. ”

“ Vocational education includes all forms of specialized education, the controlling purposes of which are to fit for useful occupations, whether in agriculture, commerce, industry or the household arts. ”

“ The classes which we have now enumerated, whose several occupations are not necessarily portioned out to different individuals, but may readily be united in one and the same person, comprise all true and proper Scholars, and exhaust the whole vocation of those in whom Learned Culture has fulfilled its end. ”

“ It is recognized nowadays that the natural aptitudes of some are later than those of others in developing, and therefore, while the choice of profession may be made as early as twenty-four, it remains open for six years longer. ”

“ Besides our profession—for we are members of the most various professions, and by no means exclusively consist of scholars or artists, but of military men and civil employes, of merchants and landed proprietors;... and again, as I have said already, there are not a few of us, but many thousands, and not the worst people in the country;—besides our profession, then, I say, we are eagerly accessible to all the higher interests of humanity ”

“ Of all experts, I may be permitted to say perhaps, that the most eminent are those connected with the professions, for we must rank the professions higher than the arts, just as the arts are above the trades. We have three great professions, to wit, the Ministry, Medicine, and Law. If we could have before us the most prominent Minister, the most celebrated Physician, and the most eminent Lawyer, we would probably have three men standing equally high in public esteem. ”

“ Training for Vocation. It is obvious that the child must be trained for his vocation. But it is far from obvious whether it is any part of the work of the school to train the child for his vocation. Is education to be "vocational" or "general"? ”

“ We cannot all be Crichtons,—and having chosen your occupation your first duty is to attend to that, and to learn to do your work thoroughly well. On a review of your past studies, you will find many important subjects of which your knowledge is meagre and imperfect, and many difficulties to clear up. ”

“ The teaching profession both in the primary and higher spheres—and the two are sharply marked off from one another—consists of a highly organized body of state functionaries, united by a strong esprit de corps and actuated by ideals and aims which are inspired by the state. ”

“ As has already been said, such education will aim, first of all, at producing the citizen before it aims at producing the lawyer, the engineer, the physician, or any other professional or occupational type. ”

“ He engages that he possesses that reasonable degree of learning, skill, and experience which is ordinarily possessed by the professors of the same art or science, and which is ordinarily regarded by the community or by those conversant with that employment as necessary and sufficient to qualify him to engage in such business. He contracts also to employ reasonable and ordinary care and diligence in the exertion of his skill and application of his knowledge to the matter in which he is employed. ”

“ In all walks of life, in all kinds of labor, this is the beginning of excellence, and proficiency follows in its wake. We talk so much about thoroughness of training, and so little about singleness of purpose. We give to every girl in our public schools the arithmetical knowledge which enables her to stand behind a counter and cast up her accounts. ”

“ Even the Entered Apprentice is reminded, by the rough and perfect ashlars, of the importance and necessity of a virtuous education, in fitting him for the discharge of his duties. To the Fellow Craft, the study of the liberal arts and sciences is earnestly recommended ”