Professional experience

“ 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. ”

“ Add then to the knowledge which you already possess patient study and careful practice, and above all, see that you add to professional ability, the strictest integrity of conduct, without which your career, however brilliant for the time, cannot fail to be attended with disgrace in the end. Recollect the promise which you have just made to maintain on all occasions the purity and reputation of the profession, and never to deviate from the straight path of its honourable exercise. ”

“ Let all knowledge which bears upon it directly or indirectly claim your closest attention, and thus prove to the world, by acts as well as by words, that you are earnest men engaged in an earnest work, and that you are resolved to ground your claims to advancement, not on smiles and favors, not on patrons and friends, but on the extent and value to the community of your professional acquirements. ”

“ In fact, it seems as if all special professions have to some extent a narrowing influence on the mind, which in ordinary cases prevents specialists forming an unbiassed judgment on any question which extends beyond the precise limits of their actual professional practice. ”

“ To attain eminence in one of the learned professions it is necessary for a man’s colleagues to think highly of his professional knowledge and attainments. It is not always possible for the leaders in your profession to know you personally, but if you can write they soon know what manner of man you are. ”

“ Your professional knowledge and skill will, on the one hand, enable you to drive quacks out of practice, whilst your knowledge of the habits of the people and your sympathy with them will secure you, on the other, a cordial reception in native homes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do not get the professional point of view. There is nothing narrower or more unserviceable than the professional point of view, to have the attitude toward life that it centers in your profession. It does not. ”

“ The professional—the chronic—exercises an ingenuity, and devotes an amount of time and labour to the perfecting of his craft which, if applied directly to his allotted task, would bring him out at the top of his form. ”

“ The preparation of the aspirant to professional standing and distinction, or even to the most modest success, thus involves wise counsel from older and more experienced minds, from the earliest to the latest years of this long apprenticeship. ”

“ I confess that natural aptitude justifies in a measure the expressions "a born lawyer," "a born doctor," etc.; still, more of what we call professional skill is obtained by training than by derivation. ”

“ We want people who know about life at large, who will come to the public service seasoned by experience, not people who have specialised and acquired that sort of knowledge which is called, in much the same spirit of qualification as one speaks of German Silver, Expert Knowledge. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As I had been mixed up for some time with a professional set, I used to sit in mute surprise to see such men, knowing the value of things, with practised minds, devoting themselves to business life rather than the old time professions, to the arts rather than to the sciences. ”

“ Does society take the measure of his social standing, or estimate the quality of his moral character and training? Do his prospective patients seek evidence of his professional ability, his special acquirements, or his general scientific culture? ”

“ The professional man, the politician, the artist, the financier, if he would be the best among his fellows, must have at his command a knowledge of the past. And it goes without saying that he who would write history, or teach it, must avail himself of all existing facilities in preparation for his profession. ”

“ But if you now devote yourselves to the acquisition of professional knowledge, energetically and systematically, you will be secure of public confidence and professional esteem; and whether you are destined to be eminent leaders in medicine, or merely honorable members of the profession, you will enjoy that reward which is independent of fame and wealth—the consciousness of having done your duty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This contrast is traceable not only as we pass from popular ignorance to professional knowledge, but as we pass from the smaller professional knowledge of early times to the greater professional knowledge of our own. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is remarkable that, while many of these contributions may be attributed to the laudable motive of professional reputation and advancement on the part of practitioners not yet sufficiently known to the public, a great number are from Gentlemen whose position in the confidence of their respective Governments or in the Republic of Arts and Letters is of the highest eminence, and who can have been actuated by no such personal motives. ”

“ Nay, we know the profession too well; know that their skill, science, and experience will ever be invaluable to mankind; and know also that their only hope of maintaining their present honourable position before the public is by adapting their system to the wants of humanity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The examples we have already given of great workers in various branches of industry, art, and science, render it unnecessary further to enforce the importance of persevering application in any department of life. It is the result of every-day experience that steady attention to matters of detail lies at the root of human progress; and that diligence, above all, is the mother of good luck. Accuracy is also of much importance, and an invariable mark of good training in a man. ”

“ The doubt, however, may now be considered as removed if we but observe how of late years the desire to possess general information on all matters relative to the functions of life, has manifested itself, by the public attendance at the various learned institutions, and how also it has been encouraged by men eminent for their talents and worth, devoting themselves to the unfolding and simplification of the professional lore they had been years in acquiring. ”

“ A clear head and a cool judgment are among the most necessary qualities. Urbane and affable in his manners; your first-class professional is an accomplished gentleman; his knowledge of the world and daily contact with people of all conditions allow him to assimilate himself with quiet dignity with persons of all rank in the social scale of life. ”

“ The professional knew so much better than anybody else just what was the real standard of the big work, and the long rehearsal of the night before had set him marvelling at the perseverance which had brought it into presentable form. ”

“ Let your professional character, in short, be the real patron to which you manfully and confidently look for ultimate success in life. Every one knows full well that the busiest men, if methodical, have always leisure time for studies and pursuits other than those directly connected with their profession ”

“ 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 practitioner owes to his client, with unshaken fidelity, the exertion of all the industry and application of which he is capable to become perfect master of the questions at issue, to look at them in all their bearings, to place himself in the opposite interest, and to consider and be prepared as far as possible, for all that may be said or done on the contrary part. The duty of full and constant preparation, is too evident to require much elaboration. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Take away the necessity and how many of us would make a success of our business or our profession? For that matter, how many of us are there who can honestly say that we have made a success of the profession which we have happened to choose? ”

“ Entire devotion to the interest of the client, warm zeal in the maintenance and defence of his rights, and the exertion of his utmost learning and ability,—these are the higher points, which can only satisfy the truly conscientious practitioner. ”

“ The peculiar experience which a successful business career gives—the power both of handling details and managing large interests; the capacity of organization; the energy and the careful judgment and knowledge of men which such a life develops,—are the qualities most needed in managing moral and benevolent "causes." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE INDIVIDUAL AS A WHOLE, INTEGRATED OR PARTIALLY DISSOCIATED
People differ not only in intelligence and efficiency, but in an intangible something referred to as "personality". If your acquaintance is applying for a certain position, and has named you as one of his references, you will be asked by the appointing officer to tell what you know of the candidate's experience, his knowledge and skill in the field where he desires a position, his character and habits, and his personality ”

“ The consultant arranged to have the thesis of the article made the basis of an inquiry among business and professional men throughout the country by another physician associated with a medical journal. Hundreds of members of “the quality public,” as they are known to advertisers, had their attention focused on the article, and the magazine which the consultant was engaged in counseling on its public relations. ”

“ In countless other ways the same fact is shown. Half a century ago a youth who desired to become a lawyer or a doctor entered the office of a practitioner and learned his profession by practise and experience. ”

“ It penetrates into every department of life, whether business or amusement, social intercourse or private meditation. Ask the physicians, ask employers of labour, ask teachers in schools and universities, ask statesmen and philosophers, what their experience teaches them respecting the average merits of the virtuous and the vicious. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We believe that professional experts, and even the foremost pioneers in the new fields which have thus been opened, will find valued help, either of cheering encouragement, or of wise, restraining caution, in his passing comments on their materials or methods. ”

“ Such standards of personal service cannot be quickly developed; they can be achieved only through years of experience and the close personal study of the wide range of requirements of those who are to be served. ”

“ To produce this extraordinary and desirable professional, it has designed some excessively difficult impressive lectures.6364 To be able to make use of these, it has given the young man the opportunity not only to acquire abstract, multiple, technical knowledge, and information, but also the complementary culture and lofty general ideas, which render the specialist a true savant and a man of a very broad mind. ”