The Outlook of Professional Life.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 398, 2 January 1890, Page 3

The Outlook of Professional Life.

(SXXCTATOB.) A Gnucu statist recently asserted, in a ean folly drawn op monograph on the sobjeoi that the majority of university students, and indeed, of ail educated lads in Germany, wer living in a dream. They all wanted <o b * professional men,' and there was not pro feseional work in the country, includioi among the professions the service of tb State, for more than one third of them all Either the work must be divided and profes aionals become poorer even than at preseat or twn out of three candidates must, as far a their professional incomes were concerned, gi with, nt food. The writer may have exaggerated the facts for he could hardly calculate accurately thi work requiring to be done, and which maj ultimately be attempted—for instance. Ger many, like England, needs five hygienic inspectors where there is now one, and tht * poot’ are only beginning to consult while a religooe revival might treble the number ot needed spiritual teachers—but be was most' probably right in his main idea. Germany is overrun with half starved professional men, ao is America, and before long the Uni'ed Kingdom will be. The increase of remunerative work to be done by the educated who desire to live by their brains, and, it possible, by. the proles sioß recognised as conferring a diploma of presumable culture, and leaving the Workers gentlemen in their own eyes end those of the girls they court, bears no proportion to the increase in the numbers of those who contend with it. We cannot give the figures, for there are and can be no statistica of the total ot work to be divided, but every one knows that in every profession the young are more and more disappointed, that Competition grows ever keener, and that the numbers who admit that they make absolutely nothing is becom fog bewildering. The bar declares itself starving; the State service is besieged with applicants for examination ; and medicine is positively choked with man who atrive, contend. and intrigue for appointments and * practices ’ of £5O and £lOO a year. Esthers lament loudly over children whom, do what they will, they cannot ‘place;* and the journals mention almost every week tbe hundred* of applieahta for-tbe smallest vacancy which an educated man can fill. The leases' which ooms before the chiefs of tbe professions, grow, more paiuful every *F,. in spite of the decline ifi drinking—which in the last generation was tbe groat first cause of failure—and it has become a trnistn to say that ot all who atari on profreslonal'careers one-third “go under"—that ia, get atok, die, or emigrate—oue-thlrd baiely survive fighting on, without a hope of retiring Ip.di eg* t end one-third make a darnel or comfortable living. That is just the proportion given by the learned German, and we fear the numbers of the first class are tar from having reached their limit The rush caused by tbe enormously increased numbers ot the educated baa hardly begun, and there ere other causes. The desire fee* 4 Ute ta which ability telle * is increasing even faster than education, and so ta the indisposition to lead the kind of life, no doubt a most painful one, which ■ basin- as’ with inSufficient capital involves. Wo. notice in country towns a positive horror among the educated tor shop life which is certainly new, and a shrinking, too, from * monotonous * Hie genefklly. Caste feeling, which always feeds the professions, grows stronger tban over in certain aectiens of the community; white, owing at once to the greater accumulation and diffusion ot wealth, there is a new pressure into the ranks of young men with small fixed ir comes, tbe class which looks on its gains from work as supplementary, and thigh all O'er the Continent keeps down the salaries of professionals. These men all thi k that they rise in life by entering the close pr< tensions. - Tbe price of partnership* is for the same reason rising, while owing to the habit ot postponing retirement*, vacancies grow constantly fewer; and tbe system of Jobbing in favor of ok-se relatives is outside tbs service of the State, more, inveterate tban •tor. Men deeoend to anything for the aake of eons-in-law. Tbe prises, too, grow leu. Democracy hates large solarise, and thinks all salaries large, while, though the oloee professions m*«e desperate efforts to keep up their Standard of remuneration, it is declining in every direction. The ordinary * prof->*ional man’.most either take leu or see his con Motion gradually slip away. For the very bright, or pushing, or fortunate, prospects are still very good—for, after al), their aid la always wanted. But the ordinary pro feuionaf man’s chance of making £BOO a wear is, we should say, 50 per cent, leu than It wu thirty years ago, and his chance of £5OO 30 per cent. This diminished chance, moreover, is not accompanied by any diminu Mon ip tbe strain of life. That increases •very year with, the increased number of competitors, and with the incessant rise in the necessary aoqulremsn*, till it is that hardly any pvnfeuioiial man seeapes serious lorn from’an tUaeaa which may, -visit him; white an interruption'of six .months from any cauu whatever ruins tbe moat promising career. Tbe sheens are, aa far ee pecuniary hope ia fpaoopned, tht dead. In 1860 it wa, possible tor a man without working to obtain £5OO a year for a principal of £lOX>OO with the fullest security, and now W**’!?** I *** »•■»• security hp pbtyfoe £Blo—a change whioh not only wMMm away his income, but leaves the road ghehad with competitor* who, were the annual product ot keeping money still 5 per •ent, would retire at ones. That evil, if it be one, afieets men ia buainora, like men in the prqfarions; but the latter feel it mote, for while busineu may be indefinitely expended, the profeeafoMl m*a's gain* are limited by that great natural fact that neither energy WOt ability will put mote than twenty-four hours into one day, Too can bay or sail to of £lO,OOO in as UtUe time as yen tMbpr-prsell to the egtenf of £1,000; but UglMigpt, pr th» Client, pr tbe Metomey for Wt»J!.«. knowledge must, whatever ho otf many nrtnntee. • -a mete is the remedy j Thera te none whatprasawa inoroanee, the work must eithre’ha divided or the (price of work must •etna down, with; In either case, a reduction Of professional income. Ws do pot better* igJWf wtittex Iwn ths numfot of tfiMe ebtering profeSSal career Will Ipse their potency in our time, arid fully Hpegt to see the gpeat professional class an •sesadingiypoor one. In 1910 the Bitnation bere will probably ramble that in America, whsr« iMugh a vecy tew profaudonale make groat not batter off tban fitaglieh.dfasnitieg ■falMoa. m *,rn by e iy is to have anabring some addition to their incomes, That Is already the position of affairs on ths Continent, and there is nothing whatever to pretest EngUshmsn fcom a similar pressure, Thaabango result* from progress, from that that derire farrefined Hb which te its neos" pry result. Th* capacity for brain work la EfcisuseM - * - * That is an. Ant that is guScicnt to aauao a t”*? 1 yMM. gwniatiea. ont of which that y*?*M*y« ta beunwise wIH emasga much fatahsppy tare, with teas dignity, toss money, |fld tarn iaiaure tban they had. tMs iapota plseaiag owtlogkfor th* naw fiWMvatton, whfoh bred* money mors than *“pi»s»y’slmpiteity' inoreaoos.and that Is tra* ta a can**; but it is simplicity latbsr in thought, aud in methods of exprea tfon, than in habits ot lifs, Nothing I; tgw h|lfit. el grading houses bstweeu two q atma Etamfoted men ci the same protesSiot Steas' ivsxU’u* s starting to. had a ‘gfafliaed’ life, meaning ii a greet tety a life ia which one bleeds mourn KiA-A® fcßtaoisi to avok WM ■ 111 |lli thane**, dr at all event) nMUp to postpone soosess, are endless, ani MMMMtsle thousands of cases to a suosre M|o«s to hasp out o

to over-house himself, and: who? finds very early that, aa regards their decrease, raise are very different things from taxes. Men in tbe professional streets and squares are paying in London SO percent, higher rates than they did in 1859, the increase being partly direct, 'and an admitted conreqqence of new philanthropic legislation, and partly tbe result of the increase in valuations, which, so far aa anyone can see, never stope. Even success has become for professionals less valuable than it was. The immense majority of them detire to save, and the change in their position in this respect has been astounding. Tbe fall in the rate ot interest to be obtained coven every secure investment, except, we believe, oertain kinds of house property wbioh it is a heartbreak to inherit, and which no one with his time fully occupied would or could attempt to manage properly. Every one feels this fall, but very few realise its full extent.