PROFESSION OR TRADE.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2657, 12 October 1882, Page 3

PROFESSION OR TRADE.

The profession of law is a noble one. To him whe pursues it studiously, faithfully, and zealously, and who has any “ genius ” for it, it offers high position in the business and social world. It offers, also, to the few the acquisition of wealth, though it is an old and well approved saying, even of good lawyers, that “ they work hard, live well, and die poor.” But in the case of the young man who chooses the law merely because it offers him better social position than the pursuit of a trade, the chances are that even that offer will not be made good, whilst it is a moral certainty that the highest rewards of the profession are not for him. Yet the ranks of the legal profession are full of men who have gone into it for no higher or better reason than that named. According to a recently published list there are 260 lawyers in practice in this city. Of these, it is entirely within bonnds to say

that not more than 50 per cent, are earning, by honest practice, a respectable income, or maintaining that elevated social position which was the chief inducement to entering the profession. Of the other fifty per cent, some small portion, no doubt, would have been failures in any position. But the large majority of those who are struggling to keep their heads above water, with every prospect of being compelled to give up the struggle, would have been useful, respectable, and valuable members of the community if they bad learned a trade or become tillers of the soil. And the community has suffered quite as much as they have; for it has lost their services, which would have boon an clement of strength and of increase, in national wealth.

What has been said of the legal profession in this respect is true also of the medical profession. Its ranks, too, ere overcrowded with struggling men who have no 11 call ” to the study or practice of medicine, and who have gone into it simply because it was regarded as more “ respectable ” than manual labor, and who have, in doing so, deprived themselves and the world of the profit which would have come from turning their capacity to its best account.

The blame for thir state of things does not rest wholly upon those who are overcrowding the professions. Society must bear its part. The young man who writes to us and who finds the legal profession 'more attractive than the mechanical employment to which he bos a real coll is a natural product of our eystem. So are the scores who have preceded him in mistaking their vocation. For it is one of the foremost teachings of our system that society wants professional men and does not want mechanics or farmers. The course of teaching in our schools is prepared with express reference to fitting pupils for a professional career ; and the University course is a natural sequence. To the boy who wishes to become a physician or lawyer the State says “ here are our free schools and our free course at the University.” But if he wants to become a skilled mechanic the State turns a cold shoulder and condemns him to shift for himself. It is true that for those who want to be farmers the Agricultural College is open. But it is also true that only an infinitesimal fraction of the product of that College is ever found in actual practical contact with the soil.

The remedy, unquestionably, is in the establishment of technical schools where manual and mechanical skill shall be taught, and where the State shall give the same stamp of respectability to such skill that it does to professional learning. Steps have already been taken in this direction ia come of the older communities ; and sooner or later every State that cares to utilise to the best advantage the material at its command ip the powers of the rising generation, will follow the example thus placed before them.—“ Detroit Free Press.”