Analyzing Character by Arthur Newcomb (best ereader for epub .txt) 📕

countries, like Germany.... In a town of 2,000 people one will find in most of our States from five to eight physicians, where two well-trained men could do the work efficiently and make a competent livelihood. When, however, six or eight physicians undertake to gain a living in a town which will support only two, the whole plane of professional conduct is lowered in the struggle which ensues, each man becomes intent upon his own practice, public health and sanitation are neglected, and the ideals and standards of the profession tend to demoralization.... It seems clear that as nations advance in civilization they will be driven to ... limit the number of those who enter (the professions) to some reasonable estimate of the number who are actually needed,'

"And in the face of this there were, in 1910, 23,927 students in preparation to further congest the profession of medicine! It's an inexcusable waste, for, though there's much the statistician hasn't done, there's little he can't do when he sets his mind to it. If he can estimate the market for the output of a shoe factory, why not the market for the output of a professional school? It ought to be possible to tell how many crown fillings the people of Omaha will need in their teeth in 1920 and just how many dentists must be graduated from the dental schools in time to do it."

PROBLEMS FOR LAWYERS AND PREACHERS

So much for the physician. While we have not at hand any exact statistics in regard to lawyers, there is a pretty general feeling amongst all who have studied the subject that the legal profession is even more over-crowded than the medical. God alone knows all the wickednesses that are perpetrated in this old world because there are too many lawyers for proper and necessary legal work and so, many of them live just as close to the dead line of professional ethics as is possible without actual disbarment. And yet, with all their devices and vices, the average lawyer is compelled to get along upon an income of less than $1,000 a year.

The ministry is, perhaps, even more over-crowded than either medicine or law. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, there are from four to a dozen churches in most places where one would render far better service. These churches are, many of them, poorly supported, and, therefore, inefficient. Yet each must have a pastor. Second, the fact that a theological or pre-theological student can secure aid in pursuing his education tempts many young men into the ministry. Recently a university student called upon us. He told us he was working his way through the university by supplying pulpits on Sunday. "But it's hard work," he confessed, "particularly when one must enthusiastically proclaim things he does not believe." This young man was, doubtless, an exception, but we have seen many poorly equipped for the ministry, "studying theology because they could not afford to take some other post-graduate work."

How greatly over-crowded this ancient and honorable profession has become may be guessed by the fact that a fine, intelligent man may spend four years in preparatory school, four years in college, and three years in a theological seminary, may acquire twenty-five years of successful experience, and still receive for his services only $500 a year. Moreover, he is expected to contribute to the cause not only all his own time and talent, but also the services of his wife and children. This, of course, is pretty close to the minimum salary, but the great majority of ecclesiastical salaries range very low—nor have they responded to the increase in the cost of living.

After all, the question is not one of the over-crowding of a profession, but of fitness for success in it. No matter how many may be seeking careers in any profession, the great majority are mediocre or worse, and the man with unusual aptitude and ability to work and work hard easily outstrips his fellows and finds both fame and fortune. The trouble is that the lure of the professions takes thousands of men into them who are better fitted for business, for mechanics, for agriculture, and for other vocations.

SUCCESSFUL, BUT NOT SATISFIED

Because they have the capacity to work hard, because they are conscientious and because they have some ordinary intellect and common sense, many men make a fair success in medicine, in the law, in the ministry, as college professors, as engineers, or in some other profession. All through their lives, however, they have the feeling that they are not doing their best work, that they would be better off, better satisfied, and happier if engaged in some other vocation. How well every true man knows that it is not enough to have kept the wolf from the door, it is not enough even to have piled up a little ahead. Every man of red blood and backbone wants to do his best work, wants to do work that he loves, work into which he can throw himself with heart and soul and with all his mind and strength. Merely to muddle through with some half-detested work, not making an utter failure of it, is no satisfaction when the day's work is done. Not only the man himself, but all of us, lose when he who might have been a great manufacturer and organizer of industry fritters away his life and his talents as a "pretty good doctor" or a "fair sort of lawyer."

Judge Elbert H. Gary was far from being a failure as a lawyer. Yet his life might have been a failure in the law in comparison to what he has accomplished and is accomplishing as the great head and organizer of the largest steel business in the United States. Oliver Wendell Holmes was successful as a physician and yet what would the world have lost if he had devoted his entire time and attention to the practice of medicine! Glen Buck once studied for the ministry. Imagine big, liberty-loving, outspoken Glen Buck trying to speak the truth as God gave him to see the truth and at the same time keep his artistic, literary, financial, and dramatic talents confined within the limits of a pastor's activities. So it is that some men are too meek and too small for the professions—others too aggressive, too versatile, and too independent for the routine of professional life. Still others have decided talents which qualify them for unusual success in other vocations. If a man has unusual intellectual attainment, he either does or does not acquire extensive education. If he does not, the probabilities are that he will enter business; he will become a merchant, a manufacturer, a promoter, a banker, or a railroad man. In some one of the departments of industry, commerce, transportation, or finance, he makes a place for himself by hard work, beginning at the bottom. If, on the other hand, circumstances are such that he can secure an education, then he passes by business, manufacturing, transportation, finance; he must forsooth become a doctor, a lawyer, a preacher, an editor, or an engineer. The question of vocation is thus, all too often, decided by the incident of education and not according to natural aptitudes.

INDICATIONS OF SUCCESS IN MEDICINE

The young man who is ambitious to enter upon a profession ought to study himself carefully before beginning his preparation. He ought to know, not guess, whether he is qualified for the highest form of success in his chosen vocation. And there is no reason why he should not know. In the appendix to this work we have outlined the leading characteristics required for success in medicine. Some of these are absolutely essential—others contributory. Among the essentials are health, a scientific mind, pleasure in dealing with people in an intimate way, ability to inspire confidence, and courage. Many a young man has taken highest honors in medical school only to fail in practice because he could not handle people successfully, or because he lacked the courage to face the constant reiteration of complaints and suffering by his patients. Sick people are selfish, peevish, whimsical, and babyish. It takes tact, patience, understanding, and good nature to handle them successfully.

INDICATIONS FOR SUCCESS IN LAW

It takes a combination of fox and lion to make a successful lawyer. And yet we are besieged with sheep and rabbits who are eager to enter law school or who have passed through law school and are wondering why they do not succeed in their profession.

There are at least two general types of lawyers, the court or trial lawyer and the counselor. The first must be a true catechist, a convincing public speaker, keen, alert, resourceful, self-confident, courageous, with a considerable degree of poise and self-control. He may be either aggressive, belligerent, and combative, or mild, persuasive, and non-resistant, but shrewd, intelligent, resourceful. A timid, dreamy, credulous man has no business in the law. A lawyer may love peace, but he should be willing to fight for it.

Because legal ethics forbid a lawyer to advertise or solicit business openly, it is necessary for him to secure a standing and clientele by indirect methods. Best of these is making and keeping friends, by mingling with all classes and conditions of people, by political activity, and in other ways making one's self agreeable and useful in the community. Thus a lawyer draws to himself the attention of the most desirable class of people. In order to be successful in this, the lawyer must possess qualities of sociability and friendship. A man who is not naturally social or friendly is not well qualified for any profession. Unless he intends to work with a partner who has these qualifications, and who will be the business getter of the firm, he would better leave the law alone.

INDICATIONS OF JUDICIAL QUALITIES

The second class of lawyer, the counsellor, is more of the judicial type. He is quite likely to be stout or to have the indications of approaching stoutness. He should be calm, deliberate, cautious, prudent, capable of handling details, a man with a splendid memory and with the capacity for acquiring a great fund of knowledge about all kinds of things. He should be able to take an interest in almost any kind of business or profession and quickly master its fundamentals.

A MISFIT IN THE LAW

Men of the high-strung, nervous, timid, self-conscious, sentimental class are sadly out of place in the law. While they may be abundantly well equipped for success from an intellectual standpoint, physically and emotionally they are utterly unfit for it. A young man once sought us for counsel who had spent many years in colleges and universities acquiring one of the finest legal educations possible in this country. Because of his intellectual equipment, the study of the law was fascinating to him, and both his parents and his professors in law school expected him to make a brilliant success in practice. What was his intense disappointment, as well as theirs, when he opened an office, to find that almost everything connected with the practice of law was distasteful to him, so that he found himself incapable of doing it successfully. For several years he had made a desperate attempt to succeed and to learn to like his profession, but every day only made him hate it more ardently. As a natural result he did poorer and poorer work at it.

It was no wonder to us that this young man did not like the practice of law. In the first place, he was fond of change and variety. His was not a nature which could address itself to one task and concentrate upon that hour after hour and day after day, such as carefully scrutinizing every detail of a case and perfecting his preparation of it for presentation in court. In the second place, his was an unusually sensitive, refined,