Page:The Ethics of the Professions and of Business, with a supplement - Modern China and Her Present Day Problems.djvu/17



F the many socially significant effects of the War there are some which are of particular interest to the professions. One of these is the new impulse to appraise the motives that have inspired various professional ideals and more particularly to test out those ideals with the touchstone of the public interest. That test naturally results from any consideration of the almost universal desire for service, the sacrifice of one's private interests to the common good that was prevalent throughout the War; perhaps, indeed, more prevalent among those who could not make their sacrifice by carrying a gun. For once, the moneymaking motive was laid aside; thousands, nay, millions of people gladly accepted the service motive as quite adequate to energize every human activity. At one blow, the professional classes were recruited a millionfold and a thousand occupations that had never been considered as capable of becoming professional unconsciously became professional. The gain motive was subservient to the motive of perfecting the quality of service.

With the cessation of hostilities most of these great impulses faded away almost over night. Their significance had been recognized by the few; yet here and there among the recognized professions there were stirrings of a new life, and at least two marked instances of effort to retain the worthwhile elements resulting from war-time cooperation. One of these was the admirable move of the engineering societies to continue through engineering councils certain forms of service to the public that had been most highly developed as a result of the war-time demand for their particular technique. The second was the effort of the architects to continue to lead the moves for the betterment of housing, for city planning, etc., in which they had taken a leading part during the War. In both of these professions there were also striking efforts to analyze the relations of the profession to the public. The Post-War Committee of the American Institute of Architects proposed, among other things, a very thorough investigation of the extent to which the architectural profession of the United States was rendering the quality and quantity of service which all of the public had the right to demand. This particular survey was very much along the line of the investigation of the professions in England made for the Fabian Society by Sidney and Beatrice Webb some years before.

Perhaps the most notable ethical outcome of the service rendered by the professions during the War was their realization of the need for cooperation between different professions, between the branches of the same profession and between the professions and the technical branches of industry allied to those professions. Indications of this may be found by the formation at Detroit in 1919 of "The Inter-Professional Conference" (still fumbling for a definite form); by the very marked