The Press. — London, England, 1857-10-03 00:00:00

gittraturt. The Choice of a Profession. By H. Byerley Thomson, B.A. London : Chapman and A WORK on the subject of this volume has long been wanted. In these days, when all the professions aro so crowded, and when the avenues to gain and distinction are so thronged, it is a most difficult thing to deter mine what pursuit should be selected for a young man of talent and energy. In addition to personal, there aro always domestic difficul ties in such a question, arising from considera tions of family convenience, severance from relatives, the claims of brothers and sisters, and so forth. We have often seen the father's convenience, or the interest of " the family," alone looked for, to the entire disregard of a young man's own aptitudes and liking. The lad with talent for the Bar is often placed in the counting-house, so as the business may be carried on without interruption, in case the father's life were suddenly to drop. Or the youth with martial longings has for similar reasons been compelled to engross deeds and become an adept in the mysteries of co.sas. and ji fas. Au:l so on in innumerable in stances. The intrinsic difficulties in the choice of a profession are those alone which an essayist can grapple with. The Church, the Bar, Medicine, the Army and Navy, are the great walks between which a young man has to choose. In addition to these, Mr. Thomson reviews the Mercantile Marine, the Public Civil Service (Great Britain and India), Art (painter, sculptor, and architect), Civil Engineers, the AeLuary, Mn Ale. Education, the Stage, and Literature, Nvhica he places last in enumeration. It is only on the learned pro fessions that Mr. Thomson has written with fullness or amount of detail. His remarks on the callings lying outside of these are vague and weak. As may be expected, his discus sion of the Bar is the best in the volume; be has written well, also, upon the Church ; but on Medicine his information is not varied nor copious. That late ingenious, but rather whimsical writer, Richard Lovell Edgeworth, wrote a work on professional education, which had some fashion in its day. It was too theoretical; but it bad elevated views, and it deserves a place ou the shelves of an educationist's library. It had merit as a readable book ; while this treatise before us is interesting only in a merely practical sense, and even in that point of view it has great defects. High mercantile life, for instance, is in itself a pro fession, and its claims ought to have been dis cussed at great length. Given a talent for languages, quickness at arithmetic, a good mercantile hand, and habits of assiduity, time are splendid prizes in mercantile life at London and Liverpool, Hamburg, Amsterdam, sad other places, even for men without capital. Large salaries are paid to unplished clerks who can write in five or six languages, and who are proticients in the course of ex change. The official manipulation of the busi ness of capitalists has in itself in our time as gamed the character of a "profession." It demands high intellectualism. and the claims of its professors are to be measured by their Wtainments, unlike those of mere speculating a )venturers. Mr. Thomson appears not to *low that it is a main point of great difficulty t o choose. in the first instance, between " business," or "commercial life," ani the " professions. " In his first chapter the author says : In point of social position the professions have vastly the superiority over the business world. The man of business has, as a rnle, no position in respect of his occu pation. if in society, his position is the result of his wealth, his education, of the accident of his birth, and breding. He has not gained it by his mercantile pursuits, a.l he will not lose it should he abandon them. The member of the other professions, on the other hand, at 'co takes a place in society by virtue of his calling ; the poor man of business is nowhere in social position, yet VI. poor curate is admitted readily to that coveted county i !ley that the millionaire has even to manoeuvre for. It is true that some merchants and manufacturers have be .n raised to the peerage, and that some professional me i are not even gentlemen, but the former circumstance is as incsrahlo of raising the general mercantile body in Il hiiia ..,,. THE PRESS, OCTOBER 3, 1857. social position, as that the letter is able to bring any general degradation upon the professional body. I refer always to the plateau, and not to the lofty mountains, or deepest valleys, in estimating the general level. No doubt the mercantile classes have much advanced of late years, and the distance between the trading and professional communities has been very much lessened, and numerous points of contact established; nevertheless the professions still maintain that superiority which their nature must ever give them. These remarks are quite open to criticism. The author is too peremptory in his positive assertion of the great superiority of the pro fessions. Where the fortunes are equal be tween a professional and a commercial man, we admit that the former has a superior posi tion, and has more chance of introducing his sons and daughters into " society." But the chances of gaining independence and fortune in a profession must be gravely weighed when deciding against business. An 11I.D with twenty thousand pounds may be a more " respectable" person in a county town than a manufacturer with thirty thousand pounds; but the difficulty of making the money as a doctor must be taken into account, and other risks besides. In England we think that the professions are underpaid. They demand expensive edu cation, some capital to "keep up" in them, they require " time," and they are confessedly overstocked. For many years, also, a candi date in any of them must live without domes tics, unless he is ready to encounter the tremendous responsibility of becoming a parent with small means to give his little ones. A. book like this before us should have gone deeper into the claims of " business " versus " the professions." We shall select some extracts as specimens of the author's mode of discussing his subject. He commences his chapter on " The Church as a Profession " in the following style : No doubt there are many pious persons, anti faithful churchmen, who will feel not a little shocked at any attempt to deal with the " holy calling of the priest," as a worldly profession; and, indeed, were society constituted on a simpler basis, and the Chnroh itself more nearly allied to primitive Christianity, such an undertaking might be regarded with some degree of reprehension. But in the present condition of society and religion, when the priest can no longer kneel to receive the " imposition of hands," and then gird up his loins, grasp his staff, and go forth on his mission ; but on the other hand must be carefully nurtured, bred as a gentleman, eduzated as a scholar, be protected and fed by the law, and in connection with his calling fultil many mere worldly duties; it would be absurd not to regard the Church in one aspect as an earthly profession, demanding considerations similar to those claimed for law, arms, or medicine. And he then proceeds with much force to ob serve : Putting on one side the delicate question of original motive, there cannot be a doubt that, when once entered, the Church is as much treated by its clergy as a temporal profession, as it is as a sacred calling,—that there is as much desire for increased emolument, reputation, and advancement, as in any other calling. Nor is this unreasonable. Is the Church to he the only profession, or even trade, in which there is not to be a gradation from minor to greater duties ; from probationary service, per formed under the eye of a superior, to trusts of responsi• bilny and superintendence? The officers, dignities, and endowments of the establishment afford ti every con forming member of the community fair objects of open and honourable competition. The son of the merchant, of the manufacturer, nay, more, of the mechanic or the peasant, may by his talents and good conduct raise himself to the highest ecclesiastical dignities which the sovereign of the realm can bestow, and thus earn for himself a station by the side of the proudest of the hereditary nobles of the land. It is also to be remembered, that ever since the Refor mation permitted the marriage of priests, a class of motives sanctified by nature have arisen to bid the clergy man to be not disregardful of the temporal advantages that may accompany turns of fortune, assiduity, or talent. The temporal ambition that might be reprehensible in the clerical celibate, may, without detracting from single minded piety, be pardoned to the husband and father. These observations are fair and sensible, and there are more to the same general purpose. He then gives the resources of the Church of England, which upon paper look vastly greater than they are in reality : The income of the Church of England is derived from the following sonrces,—lands, tithes, church•rates, rents, Easter•offerings, and surplice-fees (i.e. fees for burials, marriages, 4;c). The distribution of these revenues may be inferred from the state of things in IS3I, when it appeared to be as follows: Bishops £181,631 Deans and Chanters 360,095 Parochial Clergy .. 3,151,159 Church-rates 500,003 41,293,863 In the course of the twenty years which have elapsed since 1831 no fewer than 2,029 new churches have been built, and the value of Church property has much increased, so that after the considerable addition which must be made to the whole amount in order to obtain an accurate estimate of the total income of the Church in 11+5I, it is probable that it will be considerably upwards of 5,000,0001. per annum. The number of beneficed parochial clergy in 1831 WaS 10,174 : the average gross income, therefore, of each would be upwards of 300/. per annum. At the same dates there were 5,230 curates, the total amount of whose stipends was 446931., yielding an average of 811. per annum to each curate. The author then says : It has now become the fashion to mourn over the poverty of the clergy, and, because some of the livings are small, to deem every conscientious priest half starred. Both these views are erroneous. It has been shown that the average income of the clergyman is 3001. a year. This is higher than the average income of barristers, much higher than the average pay of the military officer, and not much inferior to the average profits of the medical man. This income cannot be looked upon as lucrative when we reckon up the cost of education, the situation the clergyman must maintain, the charities to which he must contribute, the family he may have to rear, if he does that which most clergymen do on sound principles of morality marry early. Yet the profession of the clergyman, though not presenting the hopes of profit, sloes promise a gentle manly competence to the majonry•. Of course many persons will be ready to sneer at any idea of 3001. a year being a gentlemanly competence, but it is not fair to decide on the wealth of the individual by the items of his income. A man in one station of life is tar richer with 5001. a year than another with 1,0001. The clergy have many advantages, and many opportunities of enjoying the comforts of a life on a basis of economy denied to other classes. They are admitted into society on the recom. mendation of their sacred calling and education only, independent of the advantages of money. They have oppor. tunities of forming, and do continually form, advantageous marriages, and in the event of death there is no class whose families are so well provided for by foundations and benevolent institutions. And the following calculation is interesting : That it may be assumed, on a moderate computation, that by the time he has completed the twenty-third year of his age, the friends of every candidate for orders have expended on his education at school and at college a sum which amounts to 8001. ; that it may be further assumed that, taking the average of ecclesiastical promotions, he cannot obtain preferment until he has been seven years in orders. If to 8001., the principal expended in edu eating him, we add its interest for seven years, it will amount to !,1001. It is further alleged that it thus appears clear that at the earliest moment in which an ecclesiastic can expect preferment worth 3001. per annum, 1,1001. has been sunk in preparing him fur the discharge of his duty. If a man at the age of thirty laid out 1,1001. in the purchase of a life annuity, it would produce him SI/. per annum, which, deducted from 3001., leaves a balance of 2101. as the pecuniary compensation which clergymen on the average receive for their professional services. The State, it is sail, thus enjoys the services of between nine and ten thousand'well-educated individuals, whose province it is to instruct the population in those duties which they owe to God and to society ; and as a recompense for the devotion of their time and talents exclusively to this object they do not on the average receive more than 216/. each. This kind of speculation is erroneous, inasmuch as it presumes that the Church provides no emolument but that attached to benefices, whereas almost every deacon, unless ordained to a fellowship, enters the Church as a curate, and from the brat obtains some stipend generally more than lie could purchase a life annuity with 1,1001. at the age of three and twenty. But he has in addition all the advantages of his position : and in compari,son, the clergy man in pecuniary matters is as well oft as members of other professions,—lbis income is more certain,—his ex penditure can be regulated according to his means, and both are independent of the numerous fluctaations incident to other intellectual callings. - - - Into the various modes of being educated for the Church the author goes some length, treating of colleges, &c. ; but on these heads his knowledge, of course, is only compiled. We shall now extract from Mr. Thomson's views of the Bar as a profession:— The number of prizes is positively great, in fact daily increasing in number, and growing in wealth and im portance, yet the prizes are, in proportion to the midi dates, exceedingly small ; in fact, much smaller than in any other profession or business in the country, not excepting the ill-paid curates and starving artists. There is no profession in which there are so many bond tide practising members making nothing at all by their pro fession. Not the prizes, but a bare subsistence cannot be obtained without the greatest difficulty. The absence of an outlet for )oung energy during a long peace, in a country rapidly increasing in wealth and numbers, com bined with that aristocratic feeling that prevents the sons of the English gentry from engaging in business, has had the effect of lamentably overcrowding the open professions. He then goes into statistical illustration : The profession at the commencement of the present year contained 4,035 members, and the following has been the number in 45 years:-I'ilo, 880; 1821, 820; 1830, 1.120; 1840, 1,835 ; 1850. 3,268 ; 1855, 4,035. Thus, in Ave years, from 1830 to 1855, there has been an increase of 767 members, or rine•tenths of the whole profession in 1810, and one•half more than the number supposed on 968