This use of the word service may seem technical to the reader, but it is not difficult to understand. A man renders you a service whenever he aids you in getting what you want. Any man who mak-es a "busi ness" of rendering services to others and is looking for a profit and taking a risk, is in business.
9. The are many gainful occu pations that are not classed as business for the reason that profit making is not their primaly aim. The most important of these are the professions and the arts. The three best k-nown professions are law-, medicine and theology, often referred to as the learned professions. In recent years, other callings have ac quired equal claim to rank as professions, for ex ample, engineering and architecture.
A professional man finds his reward not merely in the money he earns, which comes to him usually in fees and retainers, but in his love of the work, in its dignity and importance, in his personal independence, in the distinction he achieves because of his skill and intelligence, and in the respect he commands from his colleagues of the same profession.
The prerequisite to success in a profession is in tellectual power. If success in any calling depends more upon manual skill than upon brains, it is a trade, not a profession. For example, a dentist who is merely able to extract teeth and to fill decayed cavi ties is little more than a mechanic. To be entitled to professional rank lie must know as much as a physi cian about the various diseases that attack the teeth and the gums, and must be able to treat them in a scientific manlier. To impart this knowledge as well as to give opportunity to attain mechanical skill, is the aim of all our best dental schools. Hence den tistry may claim to rank among the professions.
The professions differ from business occupations in that they have definite codes of ethics which prescribe and limit the conduct of practitioners in the various contingencies likely to arise. As is well known, it is unethical for a professional man to advertise, for the only thing he can advertise is his own ability. It is all right for the merchant to extol the virtues and qualities of his goods, or for a druggist to claim that he handles only pure drugs, but evidently it would be bad taste for a doctor to boast of his wonderful cures or for a lawyer to'brag about his success in the courts. So the young man entering a profession evi
dently has a bard time of it in tbe beginning. He may send out cards announcing that he has opened an office, he can join clubs and societies and make all the friends possible, but lie must beware of any con duct that seems to have an advertising aim. Other wise, if he is a lawyer, he may be spoken of contemptu ouslv as an "ambulance chaser," or if he be a young physician, he will be looked upon with suspicion, will possibly be called a "quack," and will be given no "boost" by the older members of his profession.
_Members of some of the professions, however, are wise if they make a study of business problems. Many of our most successful lawyers, for example, are constantly occupied with cases which cannot be thoroly understood by one who is ignorant of business principles and customs. The engineer or the architect who knows nothing of corporation finance or business law or of cost finding will never rise to the highest rank in his profession.
10. all these respects artists are very much like the professional men. A sculptor, a painter or. a poet cannot brag about his work. The prereq uisite of success in art is taste, and it would certainly be evidence of very bad taste for an artist to proclaim his superiority to the world.
The artist, however, is not altogether debarred from the advantages of publicity. Publishers proclaim the worth of the poet, and dealers advertise an exhibit of the creations of the sculptor and the painter, while theatrical managers are frequently most gorgeous and lurid in their claims for the brilliancy of the stars be hind their footlights. Publishers, art dealers and theatrical managers are in business. It is proper for them to advertise. But the artists themselves, if they are to be thought real artists, must not seem to be courting publicity. Possibly this view may come as a shock to some so-called artists, yet it is perfectly true. But then artists will have no occasion to read tbis book.