WASTE OF TALENT IN THE PROFESSIONS
In the old days the physician was often a priest. There was mystery,
magic, authority, and power in the profession. There were almost royal
privileges, prerogatives, robes, insignia, and emoluments.
Humanity sheds its superstitions slowly. Science and common sense have
smitten and shattered them for centuries, yet many fragments remain. And
so there is still a good deal of mysticism, magic, and awe connected with
both the art of healing and the priesthood. Hence, the lure of these
professions. Romantic and ambitious youth longs to enter into the holy of
holies, looks forward with trembling eagerness to the day when authority
shall clothe him like a garment, when his simple-hearted people, gathered
about him, will look up to him with adoration in eyes which say, "When you
speak, God speaks."
There are other appeals to aspiration in the professions. When the layman
seeks for social preferment, he must bring with him either the certificate
of gentle birth or the indorsement of his banker. The professional man has
a standing, however, far in excess of what he might command as the result
of his financial standing.
The profession of law, in like manner, has, in the minds of the common
people, always set a man apart from his fellows. About his profession,
too, there is the charm of mystery, the thought of thrilling flights of
oratory and high adventure in the courts of law, of opportunities for
great financial success, and for political preferment.
Of late years the profession of engineering has called to the youth of the
land with an almost irresistible voice. The development of steam and
gasoline engines, of the electric current, and of a welter of machinery
called for engineers. The specialization of engineering practice into
production, chemical, industrial, municipal, efficiency, mining,
construction, concrete, drainage, irrigation, landscape, and other phases,
has still further increased the demand. Some few engineers, by means of
keen financial ability in addition to extraordinary powers in the
engineering field, have made themselves names of international fame, as
well as great fortunes. All these things have fired the ambitions of our
youth, and the engineering schools are full.
OVER-CROWDING OF THE MEDICAL PROFESSION
Our colleges and universities, in their academic courses, do not fit their
students for business, neither do they fit them for any of the
professions. They are graduated "neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red
herring," so far as vocation goes. Being an educated man, in his own
estimation, the bearer of a college degree cannot go into business, he
cannot "go back" into manual labor. So he must go forward. There is no way
for him to go forward, so far as he knows, except to enter some technical
school and prepare himself for one of the "learned professions."
Go into the graduating class in any college or university, and ask the
young men what their plans for the future are. How many of them will reply
that they are going into business? How many of them that they are going
into agriculture? How many that they are going into manufacturing? Our
experience is a very small percentage. Many of them have not yet made up
their minds what they will do. The great majority of those who have made
up their minds are headed toward the law, medicine, the ministry, or
engineering. This is a great pity. Why should the teachers and counselors
of these young men encourage them in preparing themselves for professions
which are already over-crowded and which bid fair, within the next ten
years, to become still more seriously congested? Perhaps the professors do
not know these things. If so, a little common sense would suggest that it
is their business to find out. Nor would the truth be difficult to learn.
In "Increasing Home Efficiency," by Martha Brensley Bruere and Robert W.
Bruere, we read:
"We have pretty definitely grasped the idea that the labor market must be
organized, because it is for the social advantage that the trades should
be neither over-nor under-supplied with workers; but it seems to shock
people inexpressibly to think that the demand for ministers and teachers
and doctors should be put in the class with that for bricklayers and
plumbers. And yet the problem is quite as acute in the middle class as
among the wage-workers. Take the profession of medicine, for instance, a
calling of the social value of which there can be no question, and which
is largely recruited from the middle class. The introduction of the
Carnegie Foundation's Report on Medical Education says:
"'In a society constituted as are our Middle States, the interests of the
social order will he served best when the number of men entering a given
profession reaches and does not exceed a certain ratio.... For twenty-five
years past there has been an enormous over-production of medical
practitioners. This has been in absolute disregard of the public welfare.
Taking the United States as a whole, physicians are four or five times as
numerous in proportion to population as in older countries, like
Germany.... In a town of 2,000 people one will find in most of our States
from five to eight physicians, where two well-trained men could do the
work efficiently and make a competent livelihood. When, however, six or
eight physicians undertake to gain a living in a town which will support
only two, the whole plane of professional conduct is lowered in the
struggle which ensues, each man becomes intent upon his own practice,
public health and sanitation are neglected, and the ideals and standards
of the profession tend to demoralization.... It seems clear that as
nations advance in civilization they will be driven to ... limit the
number of those who enter (the professions) to some reasonable estimate of
the number who are actually needed,'
"And in the face of this there were, in 1910, 23,927 students in
preparation to further congest the profession of medicine! It's an
inexcusable waste, for, though there's much the statistician hasn't done,
there's little he can't do when he sets his mind to it. If he can
estimate the market for the output of a shoe factory, why not the market
for the output of a professional school? It ought to be possible to tell
how many crown fillings the people of Omaha will need in their teeth in
1920 and just how many dentists must be graduated from the dental schools
in time to do it."
PROBLEMS FOR LAWYERS AND PREACHERS
So much for the physician. While we have not at hand any exact statistics
in regard to lawyers, there is a pretty general feeling amongst all who
have studied the subject that the legal profession is even more
over-crowded than the medical. God alone knows all the wickednesses that
are perpetrated in this old world because there are too many lawyers for
proper and necessary legal work and so, many of them live just as close to
the dead line of professional ethics as is possible without actual
disbarment. And yet, with all their devices and vices, the average lawyer
is compelled to get along upon an income of less than $1,000 a year.
The ministry is, perhaps, even more over-crowded than either medicine or
law. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, there are
from four to a dozen churches in most places where one would render far
better service. These churches are, many of them, poorly supported, and,
therefore, inefficient. Yet each must have a pastor. Second, the fact that
a theological or pre-theological student can secure aid in pursuing his
education tempts many young men into the ministry. Recently a university
student called upon us. He told us he was working his way through the
university by supplying pulpits on Sunday. "But it's hard work," he
confessed, "particularly when one must enthusiastically proclaim things he
does not believe." This young man was, doubtless, an exception, but we
have seen many poorly equipped for the ministry, "studying theology
because they could not afford to take some other post-graduate work."
How greatly over-crowded this ancient and honorable profession has become
may be guessed by the fact that a fine, intelligent man may spend four
years in preparatory school, four years in college, and three years in a
theological seminary, may acquire twenty-five years of successful
experience, and still receive for his services only $500 a year. Moreover,
he is expected to contribute to the cause not only all his own time and
talent, but also the services of his wife and children. This, of course,
is pretty close to the minimum salary, but the great majority of
ecclesiastical salaries range very low--nor have they responded to the
increase in the cost of living.
After all, the question is not one of the over-crowding of a profession,
but of fitness for success in it. No matter how many may be seeking
careers in any profession, the great majority are mediocre or worse, and
the man with unusual aptitude and ability to work and work hard easily
outstrips his fellows and finds both fame and fortune. The trouble is that
the lure of the professions takes thousands of men into them who are
better fitted for business, for mechanics, for agriculture, and for other
vocations.
SUCCESSFUL, BUT NOT SATISFIED
Because they have the capacity to work hard, because they are
conscientious and because they have some ordinary intellect and common
sense, many men make a fair success in medicine, in the law, in the
ministry, as college professors, as engineers, or in some other
profession. All through their lives, however, they have the feeling that
they are not doing their best work, that they would be better off, better
satisfied, and happier if engaged in some other vocation. How well every
true man knows that it is not enough to have kept the wolf from the door,
it is not enough even to have piled up a little ahead. Every man of red
blood and backbone wants to do his best work, wants to do work that he
loves, work into which he can throw himself with heart and soul and with
all his mind and strength. Merely to muddle through with some
half-detested work, not making an utter failure of it, is no satisfaction
when the day's work is done. Not only the man himself, but all of us, lose
when he who might have been a great manufacturer and organizer of
industry fritters away his life and his talents as a "pretty good doctor"
or a "fair sort of lawyer."
Judge Elbert H. Gary was far from being a failure as a lawyer. Yet his
life might have been a failure in the law in comparison to what he has
accomplished and is accomplishing as the great head and organizer of the
largest steel business in the United States. Oliver Wendell Holmes was
successful as a physician and yet what would the world have lost if he had
devoted his entire time and attention to the practice of medicine! Glen
Buck once studied for the ministry. Imagine big, liberty-loving, outspoken
Glen Buck trying to speak the truth as God gave him to see the truth and
at the same time keep his artistic, literary, financial, and dramatic
talents confined within the limits of a pastor's activities. So it is that
some men are too meek and too small for the professions--others too
aggressive, too versatile, and too independent for the routine of
professional life. Still others have decided talents which qualify them
for unusual success in other vocations. If a man has unusual intellectual
attainment, he either does or does not acquire extensive education. If he
does not, the probabilities are that he will enter business; he will
become a merchant, a manufacturer, a promoter, a banker, or a railroad
man. In some one of the departments of industry, commerce, transportation,
or finance, he makes a place for himself by hard work, beginning at the
bottom. If, on the other hand, circumstances are such that he can secure
an education, then he passes by business, manufacturing, transportation,
finance; he must forsooth become a doctor, a lawyer, a preacher, an
editor, or an engineer. The question of vocation is thus, all too often,
decided by the incident of education and not according to natural
aptitudes.
INDICATIONS OF SUCCESS IN MEDICINE
The young man who is ambitious to enter upon a profession ought to study
himself carefully before beginning his preparation. He ought to know, not
guess, whether he is qualified for the highest form of success in his
chosen vocation. And there is no reason why he should not know. In the
appendix to this work we have outlined the leading characteristics
required for success in medicine. Some of these are absolutely
essential--others contributory. Among the essentials are health, a
scientific mind, pleasure in dealing with people in an intimate way,
ability to inspire confidence, and courage. Many a young man has taken
highest honors in medical school only to fail in practice because he could
not handle people successfully, or because he lacked the courage to face
the constant reiteration of complaints and suffering by his patients. Sick
people are selfish, peevish, whimsical, and babyish. It takes tact,
patience, understanding, and good nature to handle them successfully.
INDICATIONS FOR SUCCESS IN LAW
It takes a combination of fox and lion to make a successful lawyer. And
yet we are besieged with sheep and rabbits who are eager to enter law
school or who have passed through law school and are wondering why they do
not succeed in their profession.
There are at least two general types of lawyers, the court or trial lawyer
and the counselor. The first must be a true catechist, a convincing public
speaker, keen, alert, resourceful, self-confident, courageous, with a
considerable degree of poise and self-control. He may be either
aggressive, belligerent, and combative, or mild, persuasive, and
non-resistant, but shrewd, intelligent, resourceful. A timid, dreamy,
credulous man has no business in the law. A lawyer may love peace, but he
should be willing to fight for it.
Because legal ethics forbid a lawyer to advertise or solicit business
openly, it is necessary for him to secure a standing and clientele by
indirect methods. Best of these is making and keeping friends, by mingling
with all classes and conditions of people, by political activity, and in
other ways making one's self agreeable and useful in the community. Thus a
lawyer draws to himself the attention of the most desirable class of
people. In order to be successful in this, the lawyer must possess
qualities of sociability and friendship. A man who is not naturally social
or friendly is not well qualified for any profession. Unless he intends to
work with a partner who has these qualifications, and who will be the
business getter of the firm, he would better leave the law alone.
INDICATIONS OF JUDICIAL QUALITIES
The second class of lawyer, the counsellor, is more of the judicial type.
He is quite likely to be stout or to have the indications of approaching
stoutness. He should be calm, deliberate, cautious, prudent, capable of
handling details, a man with a splendid memory and with the capacity for
acquiring a great fund of knowledge about all kinds of things. He should
be able to take an interest in almost any kind of business or profession
and quickly master its fundamentals.
A MISFIT IN THE LAW
Men of the high-strung, nervous, timid, self-conscious, sentimental class
are sadly out of place in the law. While they may be abundantly well
equipped for success from an intellectual standpoint, physically and
emotionally they are utterly unfit for it. A young man once sought us for
counsel who had spent many years in colleges and universities acquiring
one of the finest legal educations possible in this country. Because of
his intellectual equipment, the study of the law was fascinating to him,
and both his parents and his professors in law school expected him to make
a brilliant success in practice. What was his intense disappointment, as
well as theirs, when he opened an office, to find that almost everything
connected with the practice of law was distasteful to him, so that he
found himself incapable of doing it successfully. For several years he had
made a desperate attempt to succeed and to learn to like his profession,
but every day only made him hate it more ardently. As a natural result he
did poorer and poorer work at it.
It was no wonder to us that this young man did not like the practice of
law. In the first place, he was fond of change and variety. His was not a
nature which could address itself to one task and concentrate upon that
hour after hour and day after day, such as carefully scrutinizing every
detail of a case and perfecting his preparation of it for presentation in
court. In the second place, his was an unusually sensitive, refined,
responsive, and sentimental disposition. So fine were his emotional
sensibilities that it was almost more than he could endure to hear--as he
was compelled to day after day--the seamy, inharmonious, sordid, and
criminal side of life. The recital and consideration of these things
depressed him, made him morbid and sapped his vitality and courage. For
the swift repartee, keen combat, and mutual incriminations of the court
room he was utterly unfitted. Any criticism was taken personally. He found
it impossible to let the jibes, criticisms, and heated words of his
opponents trickle off from him as easily as water does from a duck's back,
which is the proper legal mental attitude in regard to such things. He
told us that sharp, harsh, or bitter words entered his soul like barbed
iron and he was upset and unstrung for hours afterward. A man with such an
emotional nature as his and such an intellect is especially qualified for
literature, and we are glad to say that he is now making a very flattering
success in this particular field.
INDICATIONS FOR SUCCESS IN THE MINISTRY
Aside from spiritual qualifications, success in the ministry depends
chiefly upon two talents: First, ability to speak well in public; second,
social adaptability. The second is perhaps the more important. We have
heard many ministers who were only indifferent public speakers, but who
made a great success of their callings because of their social aptitudes,
their ability to meet and mingle with all kinds of people, their
cheerfulness, their optimism, their helpfulness, their tact and diplomacy.
A traveling evangelist may depend principally upon his power as a public
speaker, but the pastor of a church must depend far more upon his ability
to make and keep friends among the members of his congregation and in the
community.
The minister, of all the professional men, is most in need of ambition, a
desire to please others and to help others, spiritual quality,
humanitarianism, benevolence, faith, hope, veneration for the Deity, and
for the supernatural elements of religion. The day has gone by when the
solemn, joyless preacher can command a large congregation. People to-day
want a religion which is bright and cheerful, which offers a surcease from
the cares and sorrows of ordinary life. They want to be cheered,
encouraged, inspired, and uplifted, rather than depressed and made sad and
melancholy. Therefore, the successful preacher will not permit his intense
conviction of the seriousness, earnestness, and solemnity of his calling
interfere with his exhibiting always a bright, cheerful, and attractive
personality.
To be successful the pastor must take an interest in all the members of
his congregation; he must sympathize with them, mourn with them when they
mourn, rejoice with them when they rejoice, cheer them when they are
discouraged, counsel them when they are perplexed. Indeed, he must enter
into their lives fully and wholly, also tactfully and diplomatically.
Perhaps the most successful preachers of the day are medium or blond in
color. While those of dark complexion, dark eyes and dark hair, are more
inclined to be religious, more inclined to take life seriously, more
inclined to look forward and upward to the spiritual and the supernatural,
and are also more studious, more capable of deep research and profound
meditation, they do not, as a rule, have the social qualities, the
aggressiveness, the cheerfulness, and the adaptability of the lighter
complexioned people.
INDICATIONS FOR SUCCESS IN ENGINEERING
When engineering first became a profession there were only two classes of
engineers, the civil and the military. Engineers in those days were
chiefly concerned with the making of surveys and the construction of roads
and bridges. The steam engine had not yet been made a commercial
possibility, therefore there was almost no machinery in existence, and
such little as there was did not require a professional engineer for its
designing or operation. Nothing was known of electricity. Very little was
known of chemistry and almost nothing was known of industry as it has been
organized to-day. Since that time there has been an almost incredible
development along all of these lines. As the result we now have almost as
many kinds of engineers as there are classes of industry. There is the
civil engineer, the mining engineer, the construction, the irrigation, the
drainage, the sewage disposal, the gas production, the hydraulic, the
chemical, the electrical, the mechanical, the industrial, the efficiency,
the production, the illuminating, the automobile, the aeroplane, the
marine, the submarine, and who knows how many other kinds. Indeed, there
are also social engineers, merchandising engineers, advertising engineers,
and even religious engineers. Naturally, it requires a slightly different
kind of man to succeed in each one of the different branches of
engineering, and it would be too great a task for the reader to try to
wade through all of the qualifications here. It would also, no doubt, only
result in confusion and a lack of understanding of the real fundamentals.
Fundamentally the engineer should be medium in coloring. The extreme blond
is too changeable and usually not fond enough of detail to succeed in a
profession which requires so much concentration and accuracy. Practically
all successful engineers have the practical, scientific type of forehead.
By this we mean the forehead which is prominent at the brows and, while
high, slopes backward from the brows. Usually those succeed best in
engineering who are medium in texture. The fine-textured individual,
however, if he is qualified for engineering, will take up some of the
finer, higher grades of it and make fine and delicate material or
machinery, or will engage in some form of engineering which requires only
intellectual work. Practically all successful engineers are of the bony
and muscular type or some modification of this type. This is the type
which naturally takes interest in construction, in machinery, and in
material accomplishment and achievement. Engineering practice usually
requires painstaking accuracy and exactitude. Indeed, this is perhaps more
than any other one qualification fundamental for success in engineering.
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. Those who have some, but
not all, of these qualities would do well in other vocations, such as
literature, finance, commerce, or manufacture. Many physicians become
authors, inventors, or financiers; many lawyers become financiers or
manufacturers; many engineers become good advertising men, manufacturers,
or merchants. All such would have done better to begin in the vocation to
which they afterward turned.
A good rule for the young man or the young woman to follow is to make up
his or her mind to enter some other vocation rather than a profession
unless he or she is markedly well qualified to outdistance the crowd of
mediocre competitors and make an unusual success.
[Illustration: _Photo by Paul Thompson_.
FIG. 41. Front face view of ex-Senator Root. The width of head, large, but
well-formed and well-balanced features, firm mouth, chin and jaw, and
expression of alertness and confident strength all indicate the unusually
well qualified executive.]
[Illustration: _Copyright, by Rockland, New York_.
FIG. 42. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. A man of marked personality, shrewdness,
ambition, courage, determination, self-reliance, persistence, and energy.
Added to these were humanitarianism, reverence, optimism, kindliness,
humor, eloquence, and organizing ability. Note high, dome-like head;
prominent brows; fulness of the eyes and surrounding tissues; large, bony
nose; long upper lip; firm mouth; square jaw and prominent chin; large,
well-formed ears; short fingers, and shrewd, kindly expression.]
[Illustration: FIG. 43. Rufus Isaacs, Baron Reading, Lord Chief Justice
of England. Keen, penetrating, alert, analytical, resolute, self-reliant,
courageous, persistent, non-sentimental, practical financial. Note
comparatively low, wide forehead, long upper lip, thin lips, square-set
jaw and chin, long, large nose, with somewhat depressed tip, large ears,
and flatness of the top of the head.]
[Illustration: _Copyright by Harris & Ewing, Washington, D. C_.
FIG. 44. Hon. Elihu Root, former United States Senator from New York.
Practical, energetic, ambitious, intellectual, with courage, critical
faculties, ambition, shrewdness, idealism, and a keen knowledge of human
nature in excellent balance. Note high, long head; high forehead,
prominent at brows, large, well-formed nose; prominent chin, general
splendid balance of head and face proportions, and calm, poised, but keen
and forceful expression.]
[Illustration: FIG. 45. Harland B. Howe, Lawyer. Practical,
matter-of-fact, shrewd, non-sentimental, energetic, ambitious, determined,
and courageous. Note wide, high forehead; prominent at brows rather square
above; high head, large nose, short, thin upper lip, and square, prominent
jaw and chin.]
[Illustration: _Copyright by Harris & Ewing, Washington, D. C_.
FIG. 46. The late Justice Horace H. Lurton, of the United States Supreme
Court. Excellent example of judicial type. Practical, matter-of-fact,
comparatively unemotional, calm and poised. Note prominence at brows,
comparative flatness just above temples, strong jaw and chin, calm,
unwavering expression.]
[Illustration: _Photo by Pach_.
FIG. 47. Prof. William H. Burr, of Columbia University. Member of Isthmian
Canal Commission. A fine example of professional type. Great intellect,
energy, ambition, shrewdness, determination, and constancy, with
refinement, idealism, sympathy, and friendliness. Note high, full
forehead; large, long, but finely chiseled, nose; high head, narrow and
straight at sides; fine texture; friendly expression.]
[Illustration: FIG. 48. Hon. John Wesley Gaines, Ex-Congressman from
Tennessee. A fine example of the dramatic orator and politician. Refined,
sensitive, responsive, courageous, ambitious, energetic, friendly. Note
high, long head, prominent nose, short upper lip, prominent chin, finely
chiseled features, and spirited expression.]