THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 93 



tinctiiJii between the professional man and the servini; man. The 

 former seeks to satisfy our real wants, the latter is content if he 

 satisfies our imaginary wants. The former seeks to supply our 

 needs, whether expressed by us or unexpressed. The latter needs 

 no such liberality. The professional man is essentially a master-; 

 he works for the love of it ; the servant works for hire. These 

 are perhaps the general characteristics of the professional man. 

 To be more specific, I may suggest that a professional man should 

 be, first of all, a man of learning; second, a man careful of the 

 tenets of the profession ; third, a student of the needs of the com- 

 munity. It is an ancient belief that a professional man should be 

 a learned man. In recent years, however, we have come to see that 

 professionalism involves only such learning as is essential to skill. 

 A professional man is better described, therefore, as a man inter- 

 ested in learning rather than as a learned man. The interest is the 

 main thing. It is this which renders the man alert and receptive. 

 It is this which makes all intellectual progress possible. The 

 most prominent agency used in stimulating interest are conversa- 

 tion and reading. It has been your privilege as students to profit 

 by the somewhat formal conversation of the lecture room ; hence- 

 forth, howex-er, your opportunities for learning in this manner will 

 be limited. You will be dependent largely upon the information 

 which you may pick up in the course of the day's work, in conver- 

 sation with your associates. I would not care to question the prac- 

 tical utility of the knowledge which may be thus acquired, or its 

 general value, but I must point out that for well-matured opinions 

 upon professional subjects you will not be able to depend always 

 upon your immediate associations ; for the most expert advice, for 

 the most exact information, you will often need to resort to books. 

 In the College you have been dependent upon your instructors ; 

 in your post-graduate work, even in the laboratory and in the shop, 

 your chief dependent perhaps would be upon books ; they will be 

 your principal sources of information and advice. 



If we will examine this matter carefully we will be able to 

 see that books will help us in two ways. I have already said that a 

 professional man is first of all a man of learning, and after that he 

 is, on the one hand, a man careful of the standards of his profes- 

 sion, and, on the other hand, a student of the needs of the commu- 

 nity. In both of these directions it seems to me books are essen- 



