Page:The Ethics of the Professions and of Business, with a supplement - Modern China and Her Present Day Problems.djvu/20

Rh frequently tended to protect certain monopolies or to advance a particular profession on the gainful side. Professional societies in that respect have gone through and are still going through various stages of liberation from selfishness. The first stage of organization was to protect the members against unfair competition and to improve the profession in public consideration. Then followed the stage in which the relationships between members of the same profession were considered as most important; certain courtesies were to be extended from one member of the profession to another. Then they were bound together to prevent outsiders from interfering or to protect the profession against unjust laws. Next followed the movement to improve admission to practice; educational qualifications were established, and the schools were looked after. Finally there was attained the stage in which permanent importance is given to the relationship of the profession to the service which it may be expected to render — that is to say the stage where public needs are placed paramount to professional rights or even desires. The various professions are today in different de- grees within one or more of these sev- eral stages of development.

This last and manifestly most socially valuable stage of the development of professional organization can best be advanced if the professions come together and test out the validity of their several standards in the light of the criticism of those who practise some other profession. The weakness of professional influence in public life comes about through the fact that each profession in the past when trying to affect public affairs has spoken for itself alone, and hence its opinions were always suspected of being influenced by self-interest. Nothing is more important in our democracy than that the best qualified to speak on any particular topic shall be able to bring their opinions to bear on public affairs. Nothing is more evident than that today the inexpert is listened to more frequently, perhaps more trustfully than the expert, on questions of public policy. Even when the expert speaks officially as representative of his particular professional body, he is weak because of the suspicion as to his motives. The right technique, that is to say the technique best qualified, can be brought to bear upon our government affairs only when the professions as professions join together, testing out every recommendation in a group conference so as to be able to present their views to the public with all the force of a consolidated inter-professional opinion. And this method is right, too, because no question of public health or engineer- ing or law is merely a question of one technique. The housing problem, for instance, includes problems of engineer- ing, architecture, finance, economics, city planning, public health, social work, law, and many other professions.

The public interest, then, in the growth and development of the professional ideal is manifold. In the first place, the professional ideal seems to hold out a new hope for a worthwhile motive in many fields which today seem to feel the failure of the money-getting motive. The professional attitude has increasingly proved its validity, and particularly during the War, as an adequate motive force, despite its many failures. It can, however, only be carried over into other fields of human activity from the present-time recognized professions if it is purified and perfected as a result of the efforts of professional