Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Addresses to the Graduating Class of Cooper Medical College, November 12, 1889
There is a wide gulf of separation between a profession and a trade. The one Opens its doors widely to all competent comers, and places no restriction on its membership save those of a proper education and a proper course of conduct - the other ties itself up in trades-unions, fixing one wage for all, lowering the most skilled to the level of the poorest workman, and prevents even the children of its members from learning their father's trade, by restricting the number of apprentices in a shop. A proies sion works, as a rule, without fixed compensation for each min ute of time or act of skill, does fully one-half of its work for charity, and varies its fees in accordance with the ability of its clients; - the trade does nothing for sweet charity, but demands from rich and poor alike a fixed price for every minute its journeyman spends in loafing along the streets, and keeps a lien upon the work until its demands are fully complied with. The profession gives more than it agrees to for all it gets - the trade puts forth its best efforts in striving to realize the largest possible profits from its contracts. The profession, of its own accord, furnishes the best material attainable for its work - the trade puts in the worst material it can get accepted, and strives to cover its defective material and poor work with some varnish which will hide its faults. The profession publishes its discoveries, tries to educate the people in its methods, to make them familiar with its tools, and to inculcate a mode of living which will lessen the demand for its services - the trade hides all its secrets, or protects them by patents, and not infrequently does direct injury to properly for the purpose of making future work for itself. The proies sion exhibits but a modest sign, to show its abiding-place, and avoids every appearance of show or display - the trade covers walls, windows and fences, even the rocks, with glaring and often vulgar devices, proclaiming itself to the ignorant, and ex alting itself above its neighbors, by claims which are frequently as false as they are impudent.
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