The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning. Saturday, January 4, 1890. OUTLOOK OF PROFESSIONAL LIFE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 399, 4 January 1890, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning.

Saturday, January 4, 1890. OUTLOOK OF PROFESSIONAL LIFE.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country's, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

In our last issue we published an article from the London Spectator, dealing with a subject of much interest. The writer takes a very desponding view of the outlook of professional life, and handles the subject in a way that would be convincing to most people. The writer holds that the progress of education is increasing the dislike for manual labor of any form, or even for work behind a counter; that the professions are being crowded and incomes from investments greatly reduced; that owing to the greater sum required fora professional man to be able to retire upon a comfortable allowance many men remain in practice when in better circumstances they would have retired years previously. It has been remarked that the Spectator has omitted to allude to one cause which tells heavily on the lesser lights in the professions. The greatly increased facilities of intercommunication have done much to centralise the work. In England most of the country towns have long been stationary, and in many cases retrograding. If a wealthy country resident requires the services of a physician or a lawyer it is the fashion to engage the services of clever men in the metropolis. London is made the fashionable centre for those in pursuit of amusement, and even ordinary shopping is done to a great extent in London by people who a few years ago would not think of making ordinary purchases outside of the towns in the vicinity pf which they resided. A few years ago the fashionable physician was also attended by an apothecary, but now the middle man has been done away with. The barriers by which the profession, of law and medicine are surrounded are gradually being encroached upon: the enlightenment of the masses has led to a more general study of the laws of health, and in regard to legal knowledge there are those who believe that the principle of arbitration will do away with much of the useless proceedings at law. The prospect is certainly not a pleasant one, viewed in the light in which it is presented by the Spectator. But there is another side of the question to be considered. While the three leadingjjrofessions have ceased to give the opening that they afforded in earlier days, many other professions have been raised to high rank, and are attracting men of great intelligence and abilities—careers that at one time were not recognised as of a class to which a gentleman of birth ought to bestow his attention. The painter, sculptor, musician, journalist, general literary worker, engineer, architect, are now all professional men of high standing. The Press now engages an enormous staff of writers ; there has been a vast growth in the railway and shipping trade throughout the world; in the army, the navy, and the civil service the openings for educated men have been greatly increased, and there may at any time be new discoveries which can only be utilised by the employment of educated men. It may be urged that the supply will always be greater than the demand, but only young men of special ability can fight their way into the professional ranks; the changes that are gradually being made certainly give real merit a far better chance of distinction, and it js only. Just that such should be the

case. Those who cannot succeed to the full extent of their ambition must sink back to their level. We cannot understand how people can seriously argue against every facility being given for the spread of education. It may be true that it creates a disinclination for manual labor, but people cannot always have their inclinations satisfied, and we have yet to learn that the fact of a man being educated makes him any the less fit to do work that can with safety be entrusted to those who have not had similar advantages in regard to their education.