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

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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

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