The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-12
roo NAVY DOCTORS.

A uCtC8AtS u tIS xACuiCdi <AoSOCAhtitk in New Orleans last week stated that there are about 10000 new doctors turned out every year in this country. and that only 2,5oo are needed. We don't know how he arrives at the latter conclusion, but we do know that the same thing in effect has been frequently said before. If his deductions ire strictly correct, it is plain that the country must soon be very decidedly overstocked with healers and that some of them will have to try else.
 As we said. this is no new theory that this doctor advances We have for many years seen the statement made. but young men continue to study medicine and the colleges continue to turn out doctors We do not hear that any of them starve. though it is possible that some of them practice at home the art of living cheaply. It should be borne in mind, however, when considering this subject that the great increase in the population of this country creates a na- tural demand for more doctors, and it may also be added that tho great congestion of population in the cities adds to the number and virulence of disease, but with all these reasons for more. doctors 1t must be plain that if there Is room and need for but one- fourth the number actually turned out by the medical colleges of the country, some of them must fail to find employ ment, and the overplus will continually increase. Perhaps The New York Com mercial is correct when it says:
 Law and medicine are the two profess sions that have spoiled more good farm CTS and blacksmiths and green grocers than all the others combined. Journal ism. the co-equal of these, requires so sternly at the beginning a marked de- gree of talent and brains that the inca pables are dropped from it's ranks quickly. They discover that the only way to edit a newspaper without serious application Is to write letters to the editor, and from this comfortable standpoint they are not worried with harrassing details and the professions of journalism is undisturbed. So far as journalism is concerned, The Commercial is doubtless aware that there are many men editing, or pretending to edit, newspapers who have about as much fitness for the profession as they would have for Supreme Court Judges, but the | difference Is that they are not required
 to graduate from college in order to pose as editors, otherwise many of them
 would fall down at the first question. But our contemporary is correct as to it's first proposition. There is no doubt of
 the fact that many young men who would
 be successful as mechanics. farmers or
 business men, are mistakenly put to learning a profession for which they have no qualifications, taste or desire, and at which they are more than apt to become failur es. It is a mistake in a
 parent to suppose that a son cannot be
 honorable and respected unless he is a lawyer, or a doctor, and it is not infre- quently the case that the boy has both inclination and taste for something else,
 but yields to the desires and authority of the father.
 It is this prejudice against business
 and labor that is crowding the learned professions almost or quite to the point
 of congestion. There is always room al | the top,' may be a good adage, but | many cannot possibly reach the top. and l If they could, there wouldn't be room
 If one hundred doctors are graduated
 and there is only room for twenty five
 either at the top or the bottom, it seems
 evident that some of them must wait a | long time for a job.