The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-01-12
Professional Extrayagance.

AIOACSSlOHdt CAtIdthSGuCG.
1t is matter of common remark that pro-
fessional men, that is, men who live by edu-
Gated labor Of high kind, are much more
lavish in their expenditures, according to
their income, than are capitalists, traders, or
artisans, and the reproach is brought against
them as class that they are thrftless. The
reproach has some foundation. Highly edu-
Gated men, because of that education, and
because of a consequent acquired keenness
OF perception of the rare and the beautiful,
frequently acquire very expensive tastes, and
are subject to temptations to purchase books,
objects of art, and trifes of luxury which
other classes are more free from. Those pro.
fessional men who have achieved great src-
cess and who are in receipt of large incomes
are naturally brought i'll contact with men of
large wealth whose incomes are no greater
but who have behind them accumulated capi-
tai. The expenditures of the men of the
two classes may be about equal. But the
expenses Of the one are extrayagant, of the
other reasonable. Then, too, the qualities of
mind which command professional success
are not usually those which lead to the accu-
mutation Of money. These are the reasons
usually assigned for the thri.tlessness OF pro-
fessional men.
But another reason, striking and ingenious
and commencing itself to the Judgment, is
brought forward by the London Spectator.
That periodical argues that capitalist saves
money because money is the tool with which
he works. The unit by which he measures
is the property with which he started. By
the rate at which that increases he gauges
his success. Thrift is to him the condition
of success. But with the professional man
the measure of success is not the profit on
money invested, but the yearly income
earned, No fresh Investment of money will,
as rule, procure him large gains. His capt.
tai is his learning and his brains, and money
saved will increase neither. Saving is in the
direct line of the capitalists thought, in the
regular course of his business. With the
professional man it is otherwise, his thoughts
being engaged in quite different way. With
the tradesman the accumulation of wealth
leads to an extension of operations and to
continued and larger successes.
AT first it would appear that the artisan
has no more motive to save than the profess
ional man. He too measures his success by
his wages, not by his invested capital. But
in his case the step from the work of the
skilled laborer to the work of the employer
of labor is an obvious and natural one, which
every ambitious workman desires to take.
The accumulation of money enables him to
take this step; so thrift is in the direct line of
his business. No such step from less prof
liable to more profitable mode of employing
the same order of faculties is possible in the
case of the professional man. The Spectator
sums up its case thus: "The laboTer who
has saved money is better fitted perhaps than
any one to employ to advantage the kind of
labor in which he himself is versed. But the
lawyer or the author who has saved money
has no way open to him of turning, az the
same time, both his knowledge and his mon
ey to account by the successful employment
OF the talents Of other lawyers or other au-
thors in undertakings like unto his own. Per-
haps, indeed, something of this kind happens
when very popular author like Dickens
turns editor, and collects round him staff OF
clever writer's, who admire his genius and
are even disposed to copy his mannerisms.
But the case is exceptional, and as a rule it
so seldom turns out that the very successful
author happens to have the qualities Of a sue
cessful editor and journalist, that exceptions
of this kind may be put aside as irrelevant.
No doubt one of the great reasons why pro-
fessional men are, on the whole, so thriftless
in proportion to their gains is this,-that the
occupation which absorbs their energies is not
one the gains of which can be extended by
the help of judicious saving and investment.
A man cannot be successful in commerce,
nor, indeed, very successful even as skilled
laborer, without strong motive for saving
in order to secure more success either of the
same sort or at least of closely analogous
sort. But q professional man who is very
successful rarely has strictly professional
motive for saving. The more his heart is alb.
sorbed in his work, the less he thinks of pro-
viding for himself in directions which are in
no way bound up with his work."
BRONSON ALCoTT believes that there is a
reversed Darwinism. He read a paper in
Boston last week on Personal Purity" in
which he said he could conceive of life that
would lead down to that of the ape. Intem
perance and its attendant evils, and vice in
various forms, lead down to condition little
if any better than that of the ape. Thus could
be seen the effect of vice on the countenance
Impure literature was sapping the life o.
young men. In oden times mothers made a