Trades and professions

educational

EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO

PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

TRADES
AND PROFESSIONS

BY

GEORGE HERBERT PALMER

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY EMERITUS
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO

Ritettfi&e $re# Camfiribge

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY GEORGE HERBERT PALMER
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
V . S . A

CONTENTS

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION v

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS .... 3

OUTLINE 35

2056782

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

THE teachers of the public schools perform their
work with high-minded intention. It matters
little what motives led them, as youths of nine-
teen or twenty, to enter the teaching service of
the State; once enrolled, they go about their busi-
ness with devotion. The need to earn a living,
the pride of economic independence, or the de-
sire to follow a socially respectable occupation,
may have brought them to the door of the school-
house, but once inside they are firmly gripped
by the ideals of the teaching service. There is
something in the contact with childhood, some-
thing in the miracle of human growth, something
in the transformation of the children of all the
world into American citizens, which soon inter-
ests the newest recruit at teaching, and enlists
him for the full and willing sacrifice that the pub-
lic school service demands. It is for this reason
that one can say that the half-million teachers
of the United States are its most devoted public
v

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

servants. No other large group of public em-
ployees can match the average of fine conscience
with which they do their work.

Yet in spite of our ungrudging praise of the
idealism of teachers, the public is not completely
pleased with the schools and their products.
Indeed, it must be said that the teachers them-
selves are far from being satisfied with their own
service. Everywhere there are evidences of new
protests and aspirations in the teaching profes-
sions. The teachers in the grades unite to gain
a higher wage, to establish annuities for old age,
or to add stability to tenure; they plead for the
right to exercise initiative and discretion in the
management of their own classrooms, and ask
to be heard in the general councils of the school
department. The supervisory officials, too, ask
for an expert status that will allow them to meet
with a freer will the difficulties of school organ-
ization and administration; they survey the
community in order to register accurately its
needs and demands, and measure with scientifi-
cally derived standards the worth of teaching.
Somehow, in the face of all these disturbances,
vi

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

agitations,, and gropings, professional high-
mindedness and the eagerness to serve seem not
of themselves adequate. Professional discussion
reveals a thousand attempts to meet the diffi-
culties of which the teachers and superintendents
are now for the first time aware.

In such a situation, the need is for a body of
guiding principles. We ought to know what
society requires of the school. That is initial.
We ought, too, to have a sympathetic apprecia-
tion of boys and girls. Without personal con-
sideration, no high work is done with humans.
But we require finally a clear sense of the nature
of our own workmanship, not merely as to its
technique, but also as to its spirit. To compre-
hend the spirit with which the work of teaching
must be done is to pave the way for growing
sanely. The clear analysis and definition of pro-
fessional life which this volume presents will
be of unending worth to those who would carry
fundamental values and a far-reaching perspec-
tive into their professional thought.

There are some particular things that are of
special pertinence to our present educational
vii

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

situation. At the very outset, we need, once and
for all, to perceive the true relation between social
service and monetary remuneration hi profes-
sional work. In spite of an impression to the
contrary, it is really quite difficult to unify the
teachers hi a propaganda expressed hi money
terms. The profession has many austere ideal-
ists who hold that a profession of teaching ought
not of itself to lay any stress on money pay.
Being ascetics they are quiet about their views,
and are discoverable only through the fact that
they will not cooperate hi the fiscal program of
reformers. These need to see their own half-
truth beside the other; to see that, while money
can be no major end of teaching, it is a necessity
ennobled by its proper use as means. There is
among us another group, those who have felt
with overkeenness the pinch of cultural poverty
caused by slender financial means, or who have
felt their neighbors' low esteem for the teaching
wage. These make paramount the professional
policies that look to improvement hi the fiscal
status of teachers, omitting or underemphasiz-
ing issues that touch superior teaching service,
viii

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

This group needs to understand that the con-
certed attempt to federate groups of teachers
with trade unions is merely an effort to depro-
f essionalize teaching without rendering any sub-
stantial assistance to labor.

It would also be a considerable gain if all edu-
cational officials could really be convinced that
there is a coincidence of interest among all hu-
man factors working hi the school situation. What
the public desires in the schools, the schoolmen
really wish to give; what the teachers request
to make classroom service congenial is really
the best way to gain what the superintendents,
in the last analysis, demand. A few cases will
illustrate the thought. What the public calls the
"lock-step" in the schools is exactly what the
teacher dreads as destructive of his own initia-
tive — the centralized, uniform, and rigid super-
vision from above. The superintendent, in his
haste to get the final product, teaching, fails to
see that teachers, facing varying conditions, must
use differing means. Again, is not the poverty,
which teachers feel they can no longer endure,
merely then- own recognition of the fact that they
iz

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

cannot participate in human institutions with
that degree of fullness and fineness required to
develop the cultural richness of personality
which parents wish in the teachers of their chil-
dren? Could parents really see this coincidence
of interest would they not be more deeply in-
terested in the teacher's salary? Is not the super-
intendent's craving for an expert status merely
his aspiration to render that efficiency which
the public is always demanding in its more criti-
cal moments? The interests of every human unit
in the teaching profession are, in the long run,
coincident with those of every other. The well-
being of the teaching profession as a whole is
one with that of the public. Fortunate we shall
be if this is clearly perceived, for then we shall
have two roads to every journey's end, and many
hands to carry the burdens.

Finally, it will be a great advantage to teachers
if they will realize how impotent they are when
working in isolation from all their profession
knows and does from day to day. Tune was when
teachers might gather together the best that their
colleagues had done, and go to their classrooms

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

fairly certain that they were on the highway of
progress. This can be true no more. We are
far removed from the simple and undifferen-
tiated tasks of the teacher in the one-room coun-
try school. We have evolved great systems of
education with expanded and complicated re-
sponsibilities, which become specialized assign-
ments to different groups of persons. Under
existing conditions the need of correlation has
outstripped the teacher's capacity for spontane-
ous cooperation. Something far-reaching and
deliberate must be employed to keep teachers
working together in the fulfillment of the en-
larged plan.

Many of the difficulties which now confront
the teaching profession arise from the fact that
the specialized functionaries of the schools have
little appreciation of each other, and therefore
offer little mutual support. The administrator,
engrossed with the mechanisms for easy school
management, loses his grip on teaching conditions
and begins to obstruct the teaching function
for which the schools were devised. The teacher,
on his side, forgets the contribution of the super-
xi

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

intendent, who has relieved him of the daily
need to face public criticism and to work with
a scant school tax. Thus the classroom instructor
grows indifferent to the consequences of good
and bad school legislation, organization, and
administration; and loses his impulse to aid the
executive leaders of the profession, who strive
to improve the fundamental backgrounds of the
teacher's work. Instances of similar professional
isolation might be cited in large number. These
suffice to illustrate the point at hand. We cannot
be members of a single profession until we have
common appreciations of educational problems
and common modes of cooperating toward the
solution of the same. Without unity of under-
standing and action we are merely members of
so many different groups of specialists who feel
only a slender common concern with schools.

The educational profession as a whole must
soon grasp the principle that cooperation is in-
creasingly necessary as the tasks within schools
become more specialized. Where men contribute
only parts, there is the constant practical de-
mand to provide a continuous process of assem-

••

in

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

bling. It must be frankly admitted that the
teaching profession is weakest to-day on the
corporate side. Its units are devoted and unself-
ish men and women. In spite of every wrong
condition, they are fascinated by their work and
would not be happy elsewhere. The joy of their
social servantship is more to them than riches.
They eagerly seek the enlargement of then: own
powers. But an aggregation of fine-souled teach-
ers does not make a profession, — at least not a
profession adequate to meet current responsi-
bilities. In a sense the most important and in-
clusive truth presented in the masterly essay
which follows is the one which insists that we
shall find "that superiority to our own detached
selves, which comes only through whole-hearted
loyalty to a profession."^,

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS1

WHAT is a profession, and how does it differ from
a trade? We teachers pride ourselves on being
professional people and altogether repudiate the
notion that we are mere tradesmen. But do we
quite understand what we mean by the distinc-
tion? It is important we should. A clear under-
standing of it will, I believe, deliver us from some
of the petty hardships of our work or even cany
us on through these to discover its exceeding
glory.

The subject is one unfitted for oratory. Re-
sounding sentences and uplifting appeals do not
belong here. In this discussion we are to deal with
delicate matters, difficult to trace, matters which
oblige me to call on you for strenuous and con-
tinuous attention and on myself for the plainest
possible speech. Perhaps I shall most easily lead
you to comprehend the subtle though weighty

1 An address delivered before the University of the State
of New York at its fiftieth annual convocation in Albany,
October 22, 1914.

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

distinction if I bring you to it in much the same
way in which I originally came upon it myself.

Years ago as a young man I spent a winter in
Italy and fell seriously ill. An Italian physician
was called. I became warmly attached to him,
admired his skill, and at length was able to say
to my nurse, "He has actually cured me. The
next time he comes I am going to tell him so and
ask for his bill." She drew back with horror,
"Oh, you would not insult the kind gentleman."
"Insult him? No, indeed," I said. "Only express
my gratitude and discharge my obligation."
"But," she persisted, "he is not a tradesman.
He makes no charge. He does not work for
money, and you must not let it appear as if he
did." "Still," I argued, "he has his living to
earn. Does he not accept fees from his patients? "
"Certainly, certainly," she said, "and of course
you will offer him something to show you are
grateful, a gratuity. But he could not make out
a bill." All this you will understand occurred a
great many years ago.

It set me thinking. I wondered if there was any
similar sensitiveness in other professions. Then
4

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

I remembered how in ancient times when teach-
ing first arose and bands of wandering scholars
called "sophists" or "wise" men sought to en-
lighten the Greek youth, particularly at Athens,
they were denounced by Socrates, Plato, Xeno-
phon, and other high-minded men on a charge
not merely of misleading the young, but of being
so depraved as to ask money for instruction.
They actually took pay for teaching, as if truth
were a possession of theirs which they could
peddle out and on which they could set a market
price. What impiety! said Socrates and Plato.
Even in our time, I find traces of this horror of
the professional man's seeking pay. It is bad
form for a lawyer or a doctor to advertise. Ad-
vertising generally raises one's income. But that
is the reason why it lowers a man's professional
standing. Professional men should not be look-
ing after profits, announcing themselves traders.
The wares of doctors and lawyers are not com-
modities of the market. So, too, a while ago it
was not uncommon for an author, if a sensitive
soul, to decline payment for his books. The most
popular poem in our language, Gray's "Elegy,"
5

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

was sent to the publisher, Dodsley, who eagerly
accepted it and offered Gray a substantial sum.
But Gray recoiled. Not at all. He had written
it for no such purpose, and not a penny would he
accept. Why, only within the last three years has
there been payment of members of the English
House of Commons. A long agitation and a radi-
cal ministry were necessary to bring it about.
In America to-day some of our most important
public business is carried on by commissions of
unpaid experts. Nor does the time-taking and
responsible work of our boards of college trustees
ever receive compensation.

We may say, then, that all down the ages, di-
minishing, it is true, in degree, there has been a
feeling that certain classes in the community
should hold themselves aloof from pay. The trader
seeks it, the professional man does not. I do not
think this feeling regards money itself as foul,
tainting the hand that touches it. The possession
of it is generally counted honorable, even the open
pursuit. He who enters business has no shame in
announcing that he hopes to enrich himself; and if
he acquires riches without trickery, he commands
6

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

respect. It is true we often hear laboring-men
clamor against those who possess money; but so
far are the clamorers from objecting to money
that they complain that they do not receive a
sufficient share. Indeed, one who enters business
with any other aim than that of making money is
apt to be condemned. I have repeatedly heard it
called unfair for a lady of means to become a mil-
liner or to take orders for delicate embroidery.
She is popularly thought to have no right in the
ranks of trade unless she needs money. Against
entering to obtain this there is no objection. On
the other hand, though a professional man must
not aim at money, he is expected to reach a cer-
tain competence, and probably the incomes of
the professional and commercial classes do not
on the whole greatly differ. Where, then, lies the
curious contrast between the two, and how can
a moneyed line be traced along the gulf that
parts them?

Reflecting on the puzzle, I come to this conclu-
sion: the professional man expects to receive
money, and ordinarily feels that he receives too
little. Money, however, enters his life in a dif-
7

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

ferent way and for a different end. He does
not, for example, do "piece work," as we may
say, so much for so much. How awkward it
would be if he did! I summon a doctor to my
bedside; and after he has worked over me a while
he says, "My fee is two dollars. I believe I have
given you about two dollars' worth of attention
and will leave." Or the minister says, "My sal-
ary is but eight hundred dollars. So I have
written sermons of an eight hundred dollar qual-
ity. Do not expect better ones till next year,
when my salary rises." Or if you teachers come
upon some exceptional pupil whose ambition out-
runs his class, do you draw back and say, "I
was paid only for ordinary pupils and cannot
attend to your demands? For a dollar extra
I would gladly push you onwards." If any of
these three professionals should speak so, we
should be sure they did not understand their
calling. Yet exactly in this way the tradesman
should speak. When I buy cloth of him and he
finds he has given me two yards and a half instead
of two yards, neither of us is shocked at his say-
ing, "Well, I must charge you fifty cents more for

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

that." He assesses his payment by the piece, as
a proportional affair. That is not the case in the
professions.

How, then, in them is money given or received
at all, if it is not to be regarded as payment for
goods rendered? It is seen that the professional
man must live while doing work which is mani-
festly of value to the public, and accordingly a
stipend, fee, honorarium, or salary is provided
to cover the expenses of that mode of life which
is thought appropriate for him; the kind of life
and the consequent scale of salary being de-
signed to secure three essential elements in his
work, namely, freedom, efficiency, and dignity.
These elements, and not money, are what the
professional man and his public regard. In com-
parison with them money is only incidental and
auxiliary. So long as he has a due degree of free-
dom, is able to work with full efficiency, and can
maintain the dignity which his calling demands,
his mind is discharged from monetary considera-
tions.

But because the public is niggardly, or perhaps
unskilled in reckoning what these essentials of
9

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

professional work require, the professional mind
is in fact continually distracted with thoughts of
money, and necessarily so; for while money is
only a condition of matters more important than
itself, it is a conditio sintfqua non. A teacher with
no money in his pocket cannot be free. If he is
not sure whether he can pay his board bill next
week, he will be pinched by that anxiety in the
classroom, and his work will suffer. He cannot
teach well with a divided mind. Through a com-
petent income his thoughts should be left free to
fasten on his teaching rather than on his purse.
Worry dulls; dulls one who for his pupils' sake
should be kept abounding and free. To preserve
his highest efficiency a teacher should be able from
time to time to escape from work, move about
in other fields, become a simple human being, and
accept the fervent interests of all mankind as
his own: that is, he needs occasional vacations
and sabbatical years; needs books, recreation,
society, all in the interest of highest efficiency.
Whatever of these is poured into him will come
out as enrichment for his pupils. Yet all these
things require money.

10

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

A certain dignity, too, is proper for those who
work in the public service, and toward this money
helps. We sometimes imagine that to influence
our pupils most we should put ourselves on their
level and be hail-fellow-well-met with them.
Certainly we should be affable, ever showing a
friendly spirit and keeping access between them
and us constantly open. But, after all, ennobling
influence comes chiefly from above. We must
look up to one who is to form our ideals, and no
one of easy familiarity will ever be of the same
consequence as one who commands our respect
through being a little removed from us. Now there
is danger that the dignity which belongs to our
calling, that dignity by which we are to exalt our
pupils, may be damaged if we come before them
in seedy coats, battered hats, and evidently medi-
tating how we are to obtain our living. That
is not a dignified attitude. Rightly, therefore,
do we who have knowledge and the young in our
keeping demand a salary that will insure our
freedom, efficiency, and dignity. And what I have
said of "our" profession is, I believe, applicable,
with fitting adjustments, to the other professions.
ii

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

All need money, often large sums, as what I may
call a negative condition of their work. It is not
their primary aim, but without it that aim can-
not be reached.

As I look over the ranks of teachers I find that
for the most part they are working on a scale of
salary which is uneconomical for the community,
because restrictive of then: freedom, efficiency,
and dignity. A few years ago I visited nine of the
Western colleges, took a small part in their in-
struction, and so became tolerably acquainted with
then: inner organization. In few of them was the
salary of the full professor above two thousand
dollars. In several that of the president was but
twenty-five hundred dollars, and in one the presi-
dent, receiving a salary of twenty-five hundred
dollars, paid back to the trustees six hundred
dollars for his house. On such incomes teachers
cannot do their best work. We expect, properly
expect, that our calling shall not expose us to
poverty. A result much better than that we
cannot anticipate. No one should devote him-
self to teaching with any other thought than
that his life will never rise considerably above the

12

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

edge of want. But I think we may fairly claim,
in the interest of the public as well as of ourselves,
that our salaries shall not sink below that edge,
and that there may even be a few prizes offered
above it.

Fortunately the justice of this claim is now
more generally felt, and college presidents are
everywhere attempting to raise funds for the in-
crease of salaries. These they now perceive to be
more effective than buildings hi drawing students,
fashioning them to manhood, and winning honor
for the institution that trained them. Whether,
therefore, we care for money or scorn it, we ought
in the interest of education to use our utmost in-
fluence toward raising the salaries of teachers. In
some other professions I suspect similar condi-
tions prevail.

Hitherto I have spoken only of the negative
conditions of our work, the conditions of freedom,
efficiency, and dignity, without which it becomes
impossible. But let these all be present, positive
interests attracting us to our work will still be
needed. What, then, are these positive induce-
ments to a professional life which distinguish it
13

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

from the commercial? They are many, but let us
confine our attention to-day to the three prin-
cipal ones. I understand that we become profes-
sional men, and especially teachers, — for I regard
teaching as the greatest of the professions, — be-
cause we wish to exercise our powers, with a view
to benefiting the community, and in loyalty to
a growing brotherhood. These three controlling
purposes, however darkly expressed here, set a
sharp contrast between the mental attitudes of
the professional and the commercial man. The
attainment of them is the one reward he seeks.
All other payment is merely collateral. Let me
say a few words hi regard to each.

Strictly speaking, every sound professional
man, every sound teacher at least, is engaged in
his work for the fun of the thing. I became a
teacher because on the whole I liked this better
than anything else. It suited me, and it has suited
me better the longer I have taught. Sometimes I
think I should hardly care to live if I were not a
teacher. From my height of teaching I look down
on other struggling mortals, busy with their in-
ferior interests, and I do not think much of them.

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

Many years ago I wrote that Harvard College
pays me for doing what I would gladly pay it for
allowing me to do. And this was only a vivacious
statement of the general principle that the com-
pensation of the professional man is measured
by his inner outgo and not like the tradesman's
by his external income. Conscious of our powers,
we see in some profession an opportunity to exer-
cise them, and to it we turn with an eagerness
which gives zest to severe toil. So one becomes
a painter because he wants to paint, a scientific
man because he wants to know, a teacher be-
cause he wants to practice his delicate art of
impartation. Such are the fundamental desires
of good professionalism. The notion of benefit-
ing somebody comes afterwards. Primarily we
are moved by the feeling in our bones that we
were made to do just this thing. In all that is
worthy, a belief in predestination attends the
best results. " To this end was I born and for this
cause came I into the world," said the greatest of
teachers.

Some candid teacher may reply, "Yes, I recog-
nize something of that sort in myself, but you ex-
15

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

aggerate. Often it is not in me, sometimes I even
feel bored. Again and again I wish I were out of
teaching and in some other profession." I must
sadly acknowledge that this is the way with us
all. We fluctuate, and find our work first-rate
only in those blessed seasons when the passion
for it is upon us. But determination can lengthen
these seasons and make them more secure. Al-
most everything on which we put our mind,
studying it long enough to explore its interior, will
disclose its attractions. The trouble is the moment
we begin to feel uncertain whether we care for
our profession and detect in it that irksomeness
which every noble work contains, we are apt to
turn our attention away and seek relief elsewhere.
But permanent relief can be had only by turning
right toward our job, finding out all that it con-
tains, discovering its fresh possibilities, seeing how
many sides of us have not yet gone into it, and
letting it draw on us for all it will. The teacher
like everybody else, must learn to distinguish
between his moods and his predominant aims,
and hold himself believingly to the latter through
all the vagaries of the former. Our times of suc-
16

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

cess are alone trustworthy, revealing as they do
our capacities and the joyous fitness which may
be brought about between them and our work.
Expression of ourselves cannot be had in an in-
stant. It is an affair of time and growth, though
a half-blind consciousness of the direction in
which it may be found is what prompts the first
step toward it.

But how different from this professional attitude
is his who works for pay! With him the activity
is merely instrumental, money the object. With
the professional man money is instrumental, the
employment of his powers the ami. Something
disagreeable needs to be done. It is nothing I care
to do. But doing it is less disagreeable than going
longer without money. I accordingly undertake
it, receive the specified payment, and am content.
A large part of the work of the world is of this
kind. The laborer goes to his factory, his gravel-
pit, his shop, not ordinarily, I suppose, because
he finds there the form of exercise, the type of
interest, which engages him most. He must have
a breakfast to-morrow. Very well, he will endure
this toil in order to eat that breakfast. A pro-

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

fession, on the other hand, if rightly entered, is no
obnoxious but a glad affair, being the channel
through which what is best in us is provided a
natural outgo. The work itself is our reward, for
each day in it we gain a little greater mastery of
ourselves. All we need is to be supported while
at work. Pay is desirable. So much, at least, as
shall give fullest freedom, steady efficiency, and
that honor which should ever accompany excel-
lence. But money is not the main thing. What
we are thinking of is the chance afforded to do
what we are best fitted to do.
£ Still, nothing in the world is good which is not
socialized. No one can live for himself with per-
manent satisfaction. If as a teacher I seek merely
to exercise my own powers, heedless of my stu-
dents, my powers will not be exercised. Regard
for another is a factor in the regard for self. The
two cannot be divorced. When we attempt it,
each perishes.

So I was obliged to specify a second aim of the

professions as benefit to the community. Need,

want, suffering, are all around me, and, full of

pity, I dedicate myself to bringing about better

18

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

conditions. All the professions have this redemp-
tive character. The minister finds men belittled
by sin, and persuasively proclaims the infinite
mercy of God and his readiness to lead whoever
trusts him into abounding life. The doctor is dis-
tressed over our aching bodies, and would relieve
them of their pains. The lawyer — the upright
lawyer — perceives the tangle in which justice is
apt to present itself, and sets himself to find the
straight path and to protect those who walk in it.
And we teachers, seeing the misery which attends
a lack of knowledge, make it our business to war
with ignorance and to furnish the aspiring young
with that knowledge which opens to them happy
and powerful lives. The scientific man and the
artist are redeemers too, in their several modes.
No less than we they would save mankind from a
low order of living. This passion of redemption
should fill us teachers and make us insist that
whatever benefits we receive in our work shall
never be sundered from those which we bestow.
And since throughout the professions our own
gams from practice go hand in hand with the
gains of him whom we would redeem, we should
19

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

be foolish to guard our giving, restricting it by
fixed measure, so much for so much, as do trades-
men. They part with precious goods and justly
claim compensation for their loss. We have no
other merchandise than ourselves. The more of
this people will take, the better we like it. Let my
students, then, use me to the full. I shall incur no
loss. By their demands I get the very chance I
want. When at the close of the prescribed hour
my pupils crowd about my desk, asking for fur-
ther explanation and disposed to develop the
subject of my lecture, I am pleased. And if I see
that these pupils are accepting my guidance,
adopting the ideals which I have formed for my-
self, and trying to adapt them to their less ma-
ture lives, I feel myself rewarded. In our work
altruistic and egoistic profits coincide.

There is always danger that the public mind
will become confused on this point and assume
without reflection that the methods applicable in
the professional and commercial spheres are the
same. Under the delusive call of the half-under-
stood word "efficiency," a kind of epidemic swept
over the educational world a few years ago.
20

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

Teachers were ordered to fill out blanks reporting
the detailed amounts of their work, with a view
to adjusting salaries accordingly. In this reckon-
ing quantity was to be every thing; quality did not
count. How many hours did we teach? How
much time was given to preparing a lecture?
How much to administration? How much to
reading written exercises? How much to meet-
ings with students? Now it is evident that if we
are engaged on "piece work" and are to be paid
so much for so much, these inquiries are of first
consequence. They are precisely those which
every sensible merchant makes of his employees.
But it is equally evident that any teacher willing
or even able to answer such questions demonstrates
his unfitness for his place. When preparing a lec-
ture shall I keep my eye on the watch and pause
when it shows the amount of time I am paid for?
Or shall I, through my interest in the subject,
press on exploring it, regardless of time spent.
When a student brings me his perplexities shall
I answer those only which can be included in the
compensated quarter-hour? There is no surer
way of degrading our profession than to put it

21

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

under mercantile rules. A teacher should be
chosen on grounds of scholarship, experience,
and professional spirit, and then be trusted.
Inspection and measurement check his inclina-
tion to say to his pupils, "Here am I. Take me.
For your sakes I am here. Take all of me you
want."

But besides the desire of the professional
man to exercise his powers and so to realize him-
self in his work, besides his wish to seek out the
needy and supply their wants from his own abun-
dance, — besides the inevitable blending of these
two aims, — I mentioned a third, but expressed
it in rather enigmatic terms. I said that every
professional man lived in loyalty to a growing
brotherhood. This phase I must now explain.

It is significant that we do not say "a pro-
fessional." Even the word "professor" takes on
a special meaning and indicates a certain aca-
demic rank. Our common term is "a member of
a profession," plainly indicating that he who de-
serves to be called such is no longer a merely in-
dividual person. He has merged his individuality
with that of others and now belongs to a troop,

22

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

a company, a brotherhood who possess a com-
mon stock of knowledge, common purposes,
common standards, which are continually grow-
ing and to which each member of the brother-
hood is expected to conform and contribute. To
the criticized maintenance and advancement of
this brotherhood all else is subordinated. You,
for example, are here to-day because as members
of the teaching profession you know you cannot
do your work well out of your own heads. To a
large degree you are dependent on those who are
teachers already. Knowledge of our beautiful art
has been accumulating from generation to genera-
tion and now furnishes the common stock from
which we all draw. Accordingly we write books
about teaching, establish educational journals,
hold assemblies like this, and coming together
report what each has discovered to increase the
power of our common calling. Each speaks
here not of "my" profession, but of "our" pro-
fession, and labors to advance rather it than
himself.

Notice, for example, how medicine has ad-
vanced in our time. Each physician is alert for
23

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

discovery. Continually engaged in research, he
considers that whatever he learns does not be-
long to him, but must be reported at once in the
medical journals and be at the disposal of all.
If a physician attempts to lock a discovery up
to himself by patenting, we look askance at him,
count him not quite professional, and declare
that he does not understand the loyalty due to
his colleagues. Just so is it with the minister, the
artist, the scientific man, with all indeed who
engage in professional work. Each draws from a
common stock of accumulated knowledge and
ideals, and feels an obligation to contribute to that
common stock. Even the professional robber,
whom we contrast with the amateur thief, gets
his designation because we believe his evil in-
genuity and daring are not all his own, but have
been studied and formulated in a league of
rascals.

This loyalty to a growing brotherhood, at least
when its aims are worthy, exalts us and imparts
to each a dignity which comes in no other way.
There is a great saying of Goethe's, "Be a whole,
or join a whole." The first half of it is a mere
24

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

counsel of perfection which does not regard pos-
sibilities. Few of us can be a whole. Can any
one? We seem compelled to one-sidedness,
obliged, in order to develop ourselves at all, to
move strongly in certain directions though know-
ing that we thus check other worthy aptitudes.
It is, therefore, perpetually important to bear the
second clause in mind, "Join a whole." Our
blessed whole is the teaching profession. Joining
that, my defects become comparatively unim-
portant, being supplemented by the powers which
you possess, which the other man possesses. Each
of us may bring something from his own experi-
ence and contribute it to the common stock of
the teacher's art. In teaching there is no higher,
no lower. It is all one. Everywhere the same ar-
tistic conditions are to be met. And each of us,
in proportion as we do our work wisely, is helping
all others to do their work also.

And when the wholeness sought by an individ-
ual is found in loyal identification of himself with
the best tendencies of his profession, it is aston-
ishing what dignity and power become his. The
process is most easily traced in the case of the
25

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

soldier. The loafer of the back street enlists,
puts on the uniform, and goes forth a new man,
compelling us to wonder how he can be so brave,
so ready to risk his life for a cause. But do we not
forget that it is not the individual man who is
courageous? It is the member of a regiment, the
wearer of a uniform, to whom the cause is precious.
So it should be with us soldiers of knowledge.
We are members of a growing brotherhood, and
do not teach as solitary adventurers. We are not
wise enough for that. It is through our profession
that we are rendered stout, for from it we get
and to it we give in indistinguishable degrees.
Often we must say, "What is there that I have
not received?" for through union with our
fellow teachers we become powerful. Since, then,
we cannot each be a whole, let us join a whole,
and so attain that dignity, that superiority to our
own detached selves, which comes only through
whole-hearted loyalty to our profession.

Such, I conclude, are the fundamental differ-
ences between the commercial life and the pro-
fessional life. The man of commerce possesses
something which it would pinch him to part with,
26

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

or he is called on for work which is disagreeable
to do. To make him a little better off than be-
fore he claims compensation. The professional
man, on the other hand, parts with nothing, he
himself being his only merchandise, and the giv-
ing of this rather increasing than diminishing his
precious store. The work asked of him is that
which he especially delights to do, all the more
because it assists the needy and unites him with
a body rich in tradition and progressive temper.
It is easy to fall into error here and to imagine
that the professional man is one who is busy with
mental work, the non-professional with manual.

I But though the intellectual factor is usually
larger in the professions, there are few of them
| which do not Require much physical exertion
and some a high degree of manual dexterity;
while what is called manual labor continually
suffers from a lack of the mental alertness which
should be its regular attendant. No, the distinc-
tion does not rest on a contrast in the kinds of
work performed, but on a difference in the atti-
tude of mind as regards compensation while per-
forming that work. The kind of payment sought
27

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

by the professional person is that which Tenny-
son, in his little poem entitled "Wages," attrib-
utes to the virtuous man everywhere: —

" Glory of warrior, glory of orator, glory of song,
Paid with a voice flying by, to be lost on an endless sea —
Glory of Virtue, to fight, to struggle, to right the wrong —
Nay, but she aimed not at glory, no lover of glory she;
Give her the glory of going on and still to be."

That is, the wages we clamor for, the glory of
going on and still to be. And when, as so often
happens, we must ask for an increase of salary,
this is not meant to bring us more riches, fame,
or even comfort. These were put aside when we
became teachers. We want the means for bring-
ing out our powers more fully, for rendering them
more effective, and for enabling us to hold the
dignified place in the community which our call-
ing demands.

But there is one important part of my subject
I have not touched yet. How many professions
are there and what are their names? The great
four which we ordinarily think of as types of all
are preaching, teaching, medicine, and the law.
Nowadays, too, we should probably include under
28

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

medicine the admirable labors of the trained
nurse, and perhaps be inclined to place as a kind
of intermediary between the minister and the
lawyer the philanthropist and publicist, as those
who study the well-being of the community. But
shall we not, then, be obliged to enlarge our list
considerably, and include in it the entire field of
science and art as peculiarly those in which the
professional spirit is manifest? The painter who
paints for the money his pictures will bring is no
artist. He must paint for his own sake, because
that is what he wants to do and with an under-
standing of what has been done. Of course he
must live, and he will be glad when one of his pic-
tures brings him a large sum, for that will give
him leisure to paint better still. Just so the
scientific man joyfully explores unknown fields
and makes a small contribution to his constantly
growing science. If he ever comes to wealth, he
will be equipped for pressing on farther. But, after
all, he will feel, as Professor Agassiz once said, that
he cannot afford the time to make money; he
has more important business in hand than that.
Such is the professional spirit in science and art,
29

raising the practitioner in these fields at least to
the level of the doctor or minister.

But I suspect when we have made the number
of professions so large, we shall begin to notice
how within them a professional spirit appears in
widely varying degrees. It seems more legitimate
for the architect, the actor, or the novelist to
look to his gains than it does for the poet or the
doctor. Even the painter, bargaining over his
picture, does not shock as does the minister who
leaves a needy parish for a wealthy one. We
warmly commend the professional man who is
indifferent to monetary gam, considering only
the enjoyment of his work, the benefit it brings
to others, and his responsibility to his order. But
we do not expect such indifference of all, ad-
mitting that there are halfway houses between
professionalism and commercialism, and that
highly respectable trading-booths often stand
on the same ground where artists dwell. Many
men, and still more women, take up teaching for
a brief season, not through any taste or fitness
for it, but because they find in it the readiest
means of support. They frequently work hard,
30

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

are entirely frank in acknowledging their pur-
pose, and should not be lightly condemned. Ne-
cessity is laid pitiably upon them. Only let us not
confuse them with what they are not. They are
not representatives of our arduous profession.
Excellence does not approach their classroom, and
they are probably largely responsible for the low
scale of salaries. As transient traders hi know-
ledge, they compete with those who dedicate
themselves professionally to teaching, and ap-
pointing boards are not competent to distinguish
those who want the salary from those who want
the work.

On the other hand, we must have observed
how many of those who are ostensibly merchants
are moved by professional impulses. I know a
man who has always kept a village store. Old
now and somewhat infirm, he has been obliged
to sell out his interest in the little establishment;
but still he hobbles to the store every morning
and goes through the familiar motions there. I
do not think he makes money out of his atten-
dance ; that is not what he wants. But he cannot
be quite himself without shopkeeping. Americans
3*

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

are said to be ever in pursuit of the dollar, and
possibly this is true. But in an enormous number
of cases it is the pursuit that is pursued and not
the coin. In playing the game, playing it ingeni-
ously, forcibly, honorably, beneficently, they
find a fairer field for powers than in any other
species of activity. Every one here knows happy
merchants who have become accomplished
gentlemen through their work, who have a high
sense of public responsibility, study how to
make their business help their city, and take the
same pride in the quality of the goods they sell
as you and I do in the way we conducted our
last lesson. In spite of the newspapers, I find
these men largely accepting' the third of our pro-
fessional conditions and recognizing a growing
brotherhood of trade. They believe hi right ways
of conducting business, respect established stand-
ards of trade, and will forfeit personal gain in
order to conform to such standards. Between
such tradesmen and members of a profession I
cannot detect a difference.

On the whole, then, I am obliged to conclude
that the kind of work we do does not make us
32

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

professional men, but the spirit in which we do
it. There is no fixed number of professions. One
may be found anywhere, for professionalism is
an attitude of mind. Wherever, outrunning the
desire for personal profit, we find joy in work,
eagerness for service, and a readiness for co-
operative progress, there trade has been left
behind and a profession entered.

We teachers should count ourselves more favor-
ably circumstanced than most workers for ac-
quiring this life-giving professional spirit. Wealth
can hardly be said to be open to us, anything
more than a bare living we renounce at the start.
The difficulties of our marvelous art of thought-
transference and the intimate relations we hold
with a multitude of expanding and needy minds
continually stimulate our interest and our altru-
ism. So distinct, too, is our business, so sharply
separating us from those for whom we work,
and even from the rest of the community, that
the sense of belonging to a consecrated brother-
hood comes to us almost as a matter of course.
Such an attitude of mind is no doubt more diffi-
cult for those who work confusedly in the mis-
33

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS

cellaneous world. Yet may we not believe that
our profession is prophetic and presents a type
toward which all organized society moves? Surely
when that Kingdom of Heaven for which we
nightly pray is come, the mad scramble for per-
sonal profit will cease to enslave us. Each man
will contentedly accept his special task as that
in which lies his best opportunity for personal
expression. Every man, too, will be studying the
needs of his neighbor as inseparable from his
own, and will consequently cleave to that neigh-
bor, sharing with him his inherited knowledge,
his own experience, and his guiding ideals. In
those happy days we shall esteem all men of
good will as our professional brothers, regard-
less of whether they are teachers, lawyers, scien-
tists, or business men.

Believing as I do that teaching is a profession
which thus illuminates all life, training us to
sound method whatever we do, I warmly con-
gratulate the members of this assembly on hav-
ing found entrance to an occupation so glorious.

OUTLINE

1. The importance of the distinction between a pro-
fession and a trade 3

2. Some examples of professional attitude ... 4

3. The feeling that certain classes should hold them-
selves aloof from pay 6

4. The professional and the commercial attitudes
toward pay 7

5. Professional remuneration is designed to secure
three essential negative conditions of work . . 9

a. The lack of money deprives the mind of full
freedom to teach 9

b. Inadequate remuneration interferes with the
highest efficiency 10

c. Low pay damages the dignity which exalts . n

6. Teachers for the most part are working on a scale

of salary uneconomical for the community . .12

a. The salaries which teachers may fairly claim 12

b. The obligation to raise the salaries of
teachers 13

7. The three positive inducements which distinguish
professional from commercial life 13

a. The opportunity to exercise our dominant
powers 14

(1) The enduring quality of joy in work . 15

(2) Activity is merely instrumental with
the man who works for pay . . .17

35

OUTLINE

b. The chance to benefit somebody . . . . 18

(1) The redemptive character of all pro-
fessions 18

(2) Altruistic and egoistic profits coin-
cide in professional work . . . .19

(3) The fallacy in applying commercial
measures to professional life ... 20

C. The power of professional membership . .22

(1) Each individual is merged in a loyal
brotherhood 22

(2) Each draws from and contributes to a
stock of common knowledge ... 23

(3) Each attains the dignity of being
superior to his detached self . . .25

8. The distinction rests on a difference in the atti-
tude of mind as regards compensation while per-
forming work 26

9. The enlarging number of professions .... 28
10. The professional spirit appears in widely varying

degrees 30

i-i. Even commerce is moved by professional im-
pulses 31

12. There is a profession wherever, outrunning the
desire for personal profit, there is joy in work,
eagerness for service, and a readiness for coopera-
tive progress 32

13. The teaching profession presents a type toward
which all organized society moves 33

"RIVERSIDE EDUCATIONAL
MONOGRAPHS

GENERAL EDUCATIONAL THEORY

DETTBT'S MORAL PRINCIPLES IK EDUCATION 85

ELIOT'S EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY 80

ELIOT'S CONCRETE AND PRACTICAL IN MODERN EDUCATION 80

EMERSON'S EDUCATION 88

FISKE'S THE MEANING OF INFANCY M

HTDE'S THE TEACHER'S PHILOSOPHY 85

PALMEH'S THE IDEAL TEACHER 45

PALMER'S TRADES AND PROFESSIONS 35

FROSSER'S THE TEACHER AND OLD AGE 60

TERMAN'S THE TEACHER'S HEALTH 80

TiiOEXDiKE's INDIVIDUALITY 35

ADMINISTRATION AND SUPERVISION OF SCHOOLS

BBTTS'S NEW IDEALS IN RURAL SCHOOLS 60

BLOOMFIELD'S VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE OF YOUTH 60

CABOT'S VOLUNTEER HELP TO THE SCHOOLS 60

COLE'S INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 30

CUBBERLEY'S CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION SO

CUBBERLEY'S THE IMPROVEMENT OF RURAL SCHOOLS 80

LEWIS'S DEMOCRACY'S HIGH SCHOOL 60

PERRY'S STATUS OF THE TEACHER 80

SNEDDEN'S THE PROBLEM OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION 30

TROWBRIDOE'S THE HOME SCHOOL 60

WEEK'S THE PEOPLE'S SCHOOL 60

METHODS OF TEACHING

BAILET'S ART EDUCATION 60

BETTS'S THE RECITATION 60

CAMPAONAC'S THE TEACHING OF COMPOSITION 80

COOLEY'S LANGUAGE TEACHING IN THE GRADES .85

DEWEY'S INTEREST AND EFFORT IN EDUCATION 60

EARHART'S TEACHING CHILDREN TO STUDY 60

EVANS'S THE TEACHING OF HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS SB

FAIRCHILD'S THE TEACHING OF POETRY IN THE HIGH SCHOOL 60

FREEMAN'S THE TEACHING OF HANDWRITING 60

HALIBURTON AND SMITH'S TEACHING POETRY IN THE GRADES 60

HAKTWELL'S THE TEACHING OF HISTORY SB

HAYNKS'S ECONOMICS IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL 60

HILL'S THE TEACHING OF CIVICS .60

KILPATRICK'S THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM EXAMINED 8B

PALMER'S ETHICAL AND MORAL INSTRUCTION IN THE SCHOOLS.. .85

^•PALMER'S SELF-CULTIVATION IN ENGLISH 80

SUZZALLO'S THE TEACHING OF PRIMARY ARITHMETIC 60

SozzALLO'g THE TEACHING OF SPELLING 60

1916

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