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.