Métier

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The so-called learned professions are only another example of the Division of Labor. We usually say there are three learned professions: Theology, Medicine and Law. As to which is the greatest is a much-mooted question and has caused too many family feuds for me to attempt to decide it. And so I evade the issue and say there is a fourth profession, that is only allowed to be called so by grace, but which in my mind is greater than them all—the profession of Teacher. ”

“ He soon became master of his profession, and left a shining example for all apprentices, by adding to his industry in business the improvement of his mind during every leisure hour—a happy prelude to his glorious and useful career through future life. ”

“ Every man, from the highest to the lowest, has two businesses: the one his own particular profession or calling, be it what it will, whether that of soldier, seaman, farmer, lawyer, mechanic, labourer, &c.; the other his general calling, which he has in common with all his neighbours, namely, the calling of a citizen and a man. The education which fits him for the first of these two businesses is called professional, that which fits him for the second is called liberal. ”

“ 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 employees, 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 ”

“ In choosing your career, don't be limited to the old professions. There are to-day many more occupations calling for the highest skill and offering the highest inducements than there were twenty years ago, and these positions are steadily increasing. Many occupations which were recently regarded almost as menial have risen almost to professions—cooking, agriculture, decorative art, forestry, nursing, sanitation, designing apparel, and countless others; and the men and women qualified for these are surer of better positions than formerly, and far better rewards. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I do not despair of any class of artisans or operatives, because I believe that there is in them all some germ of mental vigor, some higher idea of living, waiting for a chance to grow; and the same encouragement on the part of employers, the same desire to lift them to a higher level, would soon show of what the present class of operatives is capable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such then, gentlemen, are the duties arising from your present position that I would exhort you to discharge:—to labour for the acquisition of knowledge and of wisdom, in order that your intellectual being may grow into the glorious thing it is fitted to become; then to see to it that you employ in the service of men and for their good, all the skill and all the influence that through your own development you thus will gain. ”

“ The end and design of Apprenticeship, is for the training up of youth to the knowledge and practice of some art or business; whereby they may learn to get their own living, and become useful to the public; and for the promoting this good and laudable design, the Master here covenants to furnish the Apprentice with all necessaries during the term of his Indenture, and to take especial care of his instruction and improvement in the trade he follows. ”

“ We learn arts and professions by apprenticeships, that is, much after the fashion we learned walking, or stitching, or fire-making, or love-making at home—by example, precept, and practice combined. Apprentices at anything, from ditching, basket-work, or watch-making, to merchant-trading, legislation, or surgery, submit either to a nominal or an actual apprenticeship. They see other men do these things, they desire to do the same, and they learn to do so by watching how, and when, and asking, or guessing why each part of the business is done ”

“ Does not the craft combine, in an eminent degree, many of the leading features of those professions, which (always considering the predominant turn of the national mind) unaccountably rank higher in public estimation—the special pleading of the lawyer, the eloquence of the senator, and the business-like airs of the merchant? ”

“ I saw that it was necessary I should take some profession. Professions are the masks to your pauper-rogue; they give respectability to cheating, and a diploma to feed upon others. I analyzed my talents, and looked to the customs of my country; the result was my resolution to take to the Bar. ”

“ Don't mistake these two words so nearly alike. Vocation is the employment, business or profession one follows for a living; avocation is some pursuit or occupation which diverts the person from such employment, business or profession. ”

“ The training, both scientific and practical, which is required for a great master of industry is wide and various. The great movements of industry, like all other great movements, present subordinate phenomena which are apparently opposed to, or inconsistent with their great tendencies and their general character. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You will see now, my dear son, why I have been so earnest to have you establish in early life a habit of industry, and to cultivate a taste for daily, honest labor. No matter what employment you have, if it is honorable employment. ”

“ To what extent is success in the occupations dependent upon sound judgment and commonsense; to what extent upon technical ability? Does native ability or special training determine success in the different vocations? What prestige and what prejudices attach to different trades and professions and why? Is the choice of the occupation determined by temperamental, by economic, or by sentimental considerations? In what occupations do men, in what occupations do women, succeed better, and why? ”

“ The simple but strict training which they give their boys, the long and tedious apprenticeship which even the sons of the richest among them have to undergo, make them very efficient in their profession, and methodical in whatever they undertake to do. ”

“ It is, therefore, the indispensable duty of every Master to use his best means, that is, to take all proper methods for performance of these covenants. He must endeavour to render his Apprentice skilful and industrious, by due information and constant employment: he must enforce the duties of diligence, frugality, and honesty, by his own example, by kind and gentle usage, and by instilling into his mind the necessity and usefulness of these and all other good and virtuous habits. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The several professions of more elevated pretensions, the merchant, the lawyer, the physician, the philosopher, the divine, form a certain proportion of every civilized society, and readily adjust their numbers to its demands and its circumstances. ”

“ A big staff includes cranks, and enthusiasts, students and philosophers, men of every race and religion whose illuminated intelligence reflects every phase of eccentricity, every degree of sanity, as well as every perfection of common sense—men of intelligence, earnestness, sensitiveness, filled with ambition and alive with interest and seeking above all to succeed in the business. ”

“ The ideal for every employee, therefore, is that he should be employed in that position which he is best fitted to fill, doing work which by natural aptitudes, training, and experience he is best qualified to do, and working under conditions of material environment—tools, rates of pay, hours of labor, and periods of rest, superintendence and management, future prospects, and education—which will develop and make useful to himself and his employer his best and finest latent abilities and capacities. ”

“ The varied and graded vocations will still exist; there will be laborers whose qualifications are for physical toil, managers who have proved their ability to lead and direct, some who can best serve with the pen, others with the plow; there will be engineers and mechanics, artizans and artists, farmers and scholars, teachers and authors—each laboring so far as practicable in the sphere of his choice but each required to work, and to work where and how he can be of the greatest service. ”

“ Is there any other distinction than this between general and professional? In the infancy of knowledge, all callings, trades, and professions, are mysteries, whose secrets are carefully guarded from the uninitiated. ”

“ This shows the comprehensive eye of the master of many workmen, who overlooks the labours of his more industrious servants, and indicates to them his regard for their welfare and appreciation of their labours. ”

“ In the last place here, we must now look at the Demand for the personal services of Professional laborers. These are persons, who have done something more with reference to their life-work than serve an apprenticeship to a trade, or acquire some mechanical skill in connection with some kind of machinery. An Education rather than an Apprenticeship is implied in Professional laborers. Knowledge of the bodies and of the minds of men ”

“ That class is to-day producing the industrial chemist, the technical agriculturalist, the electrician, the stone and timber expert, etc. The doctor, the solicitor, even the clergyman, are intellectually better trained than they were, more inclined to keep up-to-date by means of the journals of their societies and of the latest books. ”

“ But in directing the employment of labour, they would find room for the exercise of all the powers of their minds, of their best affections, and of whatever was worthy in their ambition. p. 35Their occupation, so far from being a limited sphere of action, is one which may give scope to minds of the most various capacity. ”

“ Journeymen, whom we agree with for a longer space, to assist us in our calling, on such conditions: 3. Houshold servants, who usually contract by the year, to perform, on the considerations specified, either some particular branch of houshold work, or (if there be only one servant) all manner of work whatever from time to time is needful to be done in the family. 4. Apprentices, who are engaged for several years, chiefly to serve their masters in their particular trade or calling. Now, how far are all or any of these obliged in conscience, to obey and be subject to their own masters? ”

“ Every one can have food in my house who chooses to work for it; nobody without. I can help you on your way, too; and as for your poor horse you talk about, he shall be provided for. My name is Industry, and Industry always takes care of her beasts. ”

“ The present effort will be under the chief conduct of one who, from his experience and practice, has derived means and opportunities of knowing the wants, and understanding the interests, of the class to whom he has the honour to belong. And it will be the object at all times to enlist in behalf of this enterprise the talent and services of all superior minds and zealous hearts in the various kindred professions. ”

“ For the most part the various vocations are said to be actuated by much the same motives, the leading satisfactions being honor, truth, position, beauty, progress, fees or salary, and welfare. These enumerations, of course, help us in no way to distinguish between the particular satisfactions or interests involved in the different types of work. Quite the same thing is true of the abilities required. Most of them call for energy, industry, judgment and ability to deal with people. ”