Speaking in general terms--the exceptions shall be noted
afterward--the Professions during the whole of the nineteenth century
were jealously barred and closed in and fenced round. Admission, in
theory, could only be obtained by young men of gentle birth and good
breeding. Not that there was any expressed rule to that effect. It was
not written over the gateway of Lincoln's Inn that none but gentlemen
were to be admitted, nor was it ever stated in any book or paper that
none but gentlemen were to be called. But, as you will be shown
immediately, the barring of the gate against the lad of humble origin
was quite as effectually accomplished without any law, mule, or
regulation whatever.
The professional avenues of distinction which, early in the twentieth
century, were only three or four, had, by the end of the century, been
multiplied tenfold by the birth or creation of new Professions.
Formerly a young man of ambition might go into tho Church, into one of
the two services, into the Law, or into Medicine. He might also, if he
were a country gentleman, go into the House of Commons. At the end of
the century the professional career included, besides these, all the
various branches of Science, all the forms of Art, all the divisions
of Literature, Music, Architecture, the Drama, Engineering, Teaching,
Archaeology, Political Economy, and, in fact, every conceivable
subject to which the mind of man can worthily devote itself.
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