The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-01-20
ovER-cRo d g1 PRoF Ess1oNs.

OvER-CRoWDED PROFESSIONS.
There are TOO many professional
schools. Thefsupply of professional tim
Der is far in excess of the demand for
professional service.
Thousands of ambitious young men are
fooled every year by the old sophism,
There is room at the top" There is no
room at the top. The strife there is
| as keen as at the lower rung of the
ladder. Hundreds of young men are de-
luded into the learned professions by
the fact that few succeed, and they
expect to be one of that few. On every
hand you see struggling lawyers, wait
ing patiently for the business that never
comes. On every hand are DOCTORS fresh
from the medical schools, with ability.
but without a list of patients; the only
patience they have being that with
which nature endowed them
This is true Of the profession of teach
ing. The keen competition for place has
brought down the price of. service so
that men of brains cannot afford to give
their time. to the education of the COM
ing generation 49,. s- ~
Men, who have spent years in special
preparation-men of real ability can get
but sl,5Oo to 81, 800 per year What is to
be done?
Educate the boys to some useful
manual or business employment Instead
OF making lawyers. doctors, professors
or preachers out of them, make them into
engineers, mechanics, merchants and
farmers. Far better, good machfnist,
earning good salary, than poor law
yer wasting 4 his life hoping for fame.
Better an educated farmer with the skill
to do and the disposition to succeed, than
man school teacher dragging out his
. days in the rut of unpaid drudgery.
But, says some; one. the professions are
honorable, they give one a position in
society, they carry influence with their
very names That may have been so
once, but times have changed. The law
yer, the doctor. the teacher has influence
and position, just, to the extent that he
has ability and athe power to compel
success, and no further Success In any
line brings social position and influence,
no matter whatsithe vocation may be.
Besides, the legal profession is fast be-
coming a craft. The combinations of
capital into corporations and trusts is
gradually but surely wiping out the small
lawyer, making of him mere clerk for
some firm which holds the business. The
lawyer of the middle of the last century
is no more. The practice that made great
men of Douglas and Lincoln is now but
a memory. ; a
The great men of the twentieth CEN
fury will be the business men-the build
ers-the creators of great. enterprises
men who grasp the underlying prin-
ciples of the commercial world and ac-
complish results-men whose minds con-
ceive and whose 5eaergy constructs the
arteries of trade, both on land and on
sea-men who build and control the
producing plants of the nation
These men will dictate to the preach
I er, how he shall preach; to the professor,
how he shall teach, to the legislator
how he shall vote. They will control ma
tional policies. 1t will be, as it is begin
ming to be new,- the aristocracy of brains,
money and achievement
1t is we'll enough to educate a young
man in the law. There can be no bet
ter mental drill than thorough course
in the principles, that govern society. A
course in medicine and theology will
broaden and 5adorn his mind. 1t is well
to have all this knowledge, If it is gain
ed with no ointention of making a life
job or it. These remarks do not apply
to the born lawyer, preacher or any etn-
er person who Tfa$e natural bent for his
chosen .professien- They are, intended
to apply only to- the common hundreds
without any, genius in the direction of
their chosen rvoeation-
MetFtocfIty III Oiic' totaLioi1 may Decoiiie
genius IN another. And the managers
of professional schools who must know
that six out Of every ten of those whom
they graduate will fail in the struggle
to come. are doing those six tenths a
positive injury by not giving them the
plain unvarnished truth 1t is wei
enough for some TO hitch their wagon
to star, but for the majority, strong
pair of mules is more serviceabIe.