Professional class

“ The Three Learned Professions.—When there were but three learned professions, law, medicine, and theology, and the man of action, soldier or ruler, thought lightly of them all in comparison with his own field of activity, the higher education could be limited to those of selected classes. Now the social need is for trained talent in a far broader area, and the consequence is that not only 273is the grade-school being made over but the professional goal of college and university is being extended beyond the dreams of old pedagogues. ”

“ And our most progressive centers are looking upon him as a specialist, an educational expert, and demanding in him an educational and a professional equipment commensurate with the larger, more difficult, and most important work. ”

“ These establishments have been founded, commonly, with a professed utilitarian purpose, and have started out with professional training as their chief avowed aim. The purpose made most of in their establishment has commonly been to train young men for proficiency in some gainful occupation ”

“ Fortunately, there are dozens of State and national groups committed to quality education in vocational specialties, and these groups are attuned to economic trends and supportive of professional educators in the technical-vocational fields. ”

“ To-day we see expressions and indications of the new outlook upon every hand, in the greatly increased professional zeal that animates the teacher's calling; in the widespread movement among all civilized countries to raise the standards of teachers, to eliminate those candidates for service who have not subjected themselves to the discipline of special preparation ”

“ The professional avenues of distinction which, early in the twentieth century, were only three or four, had, by the end of the century, been multiplied tenfold by the birth or creation of new Professions. ”

“ There is a certain kind of training, the acquisition of a certain cast of thought, which are requisites for statesmen as a class, as much as his legal reading for a lawyer, or his apprenticeship for a handicraftsman. ”

“ But the three oldest and best recognized professions no longer stand alone, in the estimation of our higher educational authorities and of the intelligent public. In a democracy like ours, with a constantly advancing conception of what is involved in education for citizenship and for participation in every individual function of the social and economic life, the work of the teacher comes to be recognized as professional in the highest sense. Teaching, indeed, seems destined in the near future to become the very foremost of all the professions. ”

“ Teachers, on the other hand, through long familiarity with humane studies, have fallen into the languor of routine. Besides, as knowledge in each new department increases, the necessity of specialising with a view to adopting a professional career, makes itself continually felt with greater urgency. ”

“ The standard of work that ensures a successful professional career is now technically very high and nothing but years of determined study can equip you for equal competition with the rest in the field. ”

“ In general, the professional sought to isolate in order to control.’13 As Weber goes on to note, ‘The university, as it developed in the latter half of the nineteenth century, became the institutional expression and articulation of the culture of professionalism . ”

“ 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. ”

“ The profession which you have chosen is one of the most honorable, but at the same time you should not forget that it is a profession crowded with men of merit, that competition is very keen and professional success difficult to secure without years of close application to study, and a careful cultivation of the habit of speaking with simplicity, readiness and precision. ”

“ The choice rests with himself; he will be what he wants to be, or what he is able to be—professor, engineer, physician, member of the bar, an administrator or a functionary. In each of his qualifications he renders an important service to the public, he exercises an honorable profession; let him be competent and expert, that concerns society. ”

“ Without such foundations, secured either in college or out, analysis of problems in a specialized business field is almost sure to be one-sided and incomplete.
The kind of professional training that I would suggest for the future business executive would be laid on the foundation of a college course of two, three, or four years in which the viewpoint and the varied methods of study in several diverse branches of knowledge had been thoroughly instilled. ”

“ Not called upon to work for subsistence, its members are able to devote time and energy to that intellectual labor and discipline which are required for professional occupations as distinguished from other occupations.
Carrying with us these general conceptions of the nature of professional institutions and of their origin, we are now prepared for recognizing the significance of those groups of facts which the historical development of the professions presents to us. ”

“ Gentlemen, a serious duty bearing alike on your professional studies and on the pursuits of your leisure moments is the due and progressive training of your intellectual powers. A serious duty. This training, no longer cribb'd. cabin'd and confin'd by the imperious requirements of examination standards, involves not only the discipline of those faculties whose powers have been cultivated, but also, and more especially of those which are weak or which have been overlooked and neglected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Dangers of Specialization in Professional Work.—We are beginning to see that this process may be carried so far that a shallow and a cheap person may so fill the exacting and narrow routine of a specialty of manual work or professional service as to check ambition and power to achieve a full and rich personality. ”

“ And then, the training of all these distinct classes will not be by Universities of general knowledge, but by distinct schools of such knowledge as shall be most useful for every class: in which, first the principles of their special business may be perfectly taught, and whatever higher learning, and cultivation of the faculties for receiving and giving pleasure, may be properly joined with that labour, taught in connection with it. ”

“ Of the three, I am afraid that university instructors have, in the main, but the first. At any rate, all they know of the other two is of an empirical character and what they have picked up incidentally. There are exceptions, to be sure. Every worthy institution has them, striking exceptions, too, some of them are. A few of our older men have become good teachers thru practise and experiment, and an occasional young man now comes with professional preparation. ”

“ This class includes not only the members of the learned professions—law, medicine, and the ministry—but a vast army of business men, engineers, teachers, stenographers, office clerks, etc., a class that is ever increasing as our civilization advances. ”

“ The more specialisation in technical labour increases, the greater becomes the necessity of giving the superior classes a general education, which can prepare specialists to understand each other and to act together in all matters of common interest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Even today a careless apprentice system furnishes nearly all the training for what must become, in any really well-ordered system of society, one of the most learned and scrupulous of the higher professions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All it undertakes to do is to enable students to work along chosen lines—to turn them into doctors, lawyers, priests, mining engineers, analytical chemists, expert accountants. They may or may not be educated men in the liberal sense of the word. ”

“ The Office of a Teacher is looked upon as contemptible and no Gentleman keeps Company with one of that Character; to read, write and cast Accounts, is all the Education they desire, and even these are but scurvily taught. ”

“ Each social has a solid backbone, consisting of a paper or talk by some member of the class, detailing little-known points in his own business. Of a neighboring class similarly organized, one is a young architect, another works in a rope-walk, a third holds an important position in a newspaper office, a fourth is in the leather business, the teacher of the class is a judge. ”

“ Since this is true, who is better qualified by training, by education, and by experience to conduct this education than the employment supervisor and his assistants? If he is properly chosen for his work, he has a special scientific knowledge of human nature; he knows not only the talents and aptitudes of every member of the force, but also knows the best way for developing and bringing out these talents and aptitudes. He knows for just what vocation each one under his tutelage is suited. ”

“ The effect of such a change has been enormous not only on the efficiency of the service, but on the education of the country, and by a thousand indirect influences, raising and strengthening the social feeling for the immortal maxim that the career should be open to the talents. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus in every department of education the result of the training administered intelligently, and with almost infinite long-sightedness and subtlety during school-days, will be to form character, not by repression of any natural predilection, but by cultivation of mental and moral impulses to good. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It seems never to strike him that there may be among them men of his own calibre, and, in certain practical departments, even better taught than he; and that this superior class is always sure to lead the others. ”

“ THE PROFESSIONAL TYPE
This, then, is the composite photograph of the successful professional man: He is more mental than physical; more scientific, philosophic, humanitarian, and idealistic than commercial; more social and friendly than exclusive and reserved; more ambitious for professional high standing or achievement than for wealth or power. Unless the aspirant to professional honors has some or all of these qualifications in a considerable degree, he would better turn his attention to some other vocation where there is not so much competition. ”

“ The student who repairs to them sees in the list of classes and of professors a fair picture of the world of knowledge. Whatever he needs to know there is some one ready to teach him, some one competent to discipline him in the way of learning; whatever his special bent, let him but be able and diligent, and in due time he shall find distinction and a career. Among his professors, he sees men whose names are known and revered throughout the civilized world; and their living example infects him with a noble ambition, and a love for the spirit of work. ”

“ You give our people education in schools and colleges; but our people demand a practical training also, and if you put them in those higher posts of responsibility and emolument, you give them that practical training and discipline which is so essential to integrity, honesty, and probity, and a successful discharge of high duty. ”

“ 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. ”