Communication

[We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest.]

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The Union can probably do no greater service to its members than it plans to do by offering each year a course of lectures or conferences for the guidance of men who are trying to choose a profession. Such men are likely to form superficial or conventional conceptions of what the different professions are and what qualities they require, and to decide in favor of one or against another on very insufficient evidence. Thus a man who shows a talent for debate thinks he is cut out for a lawyer, and one who has a moderate amount of mechanical ingenuity thinks he is born to be an engineer. The first test of exact thinking and careful reasoning for the would-be lawyer and the first glimpse of the long vista of mathematical training for the would-be engineer often bring a painful disillusionment. On the other hand, a young man of intelligence, personal force and executive ability, with a good supply of honest ambition, often excludes from consideration such profes- sions as the ministry or education, on the ground that his qualities would be thrown away in these professions, or because he thinks the minister or the teacher is presumably a man whose career is never voluntarily chosen but is marked out for him by the possession of certain so-called gifts, which no able-bodied, vigorous and ambitious man would envy.

It is one of the chief aims of the Union lectures on the professions to help undergraduates to keep an open mind on this subject until they have exhausted the evidence within their reach. A man whose mind is nearly made up to become a lawyer may well keep his decision in suspense until he has heard what can be said for business, or applied science, or education. A man who thinks he wants to be a doctor may well hear what Dean Christian has said about a medical career but also what President King will say tonight about "The Claims of the Ministry on Strong Men." The Union lectures are meant to teach that all the professions are equally worthy, and that all make equal demands on men who are attracted by the call to hard work leading to positions of influence and serviceableness.  J. D. GREENE '96