英语作文推荐 The Rewards of the Professions

英语作文推荐 The Rewards of the Professions

The probability that any person should ever be

qualified for the employment to which he is educated, is

very different in different oupations. In the greater part

of mechanic trades, suess is almost certain; but very

uncertain in the liberal professions. Put your son

apprentice to a shoemaker,

there is little doubt of his learning to make a pair of

shoes, but send him to study the law, it is at least twenty

to one if ever he makes such a proficiency as it will

enable him to live by the business. In a perfectly fair

lottery,those who draw the prizes ought to gain all that is

lost by those who draw the blanks. In a profession where

twenty fail for one that sueeds, that one ought to gain all

thatshould have been gained by the unsuessful nieen. The

counsellor at law, who, perhaps, at near forty years of age,

begins to make something by his profession, ought to

receive the retribution, not only of his own so tedious and

expensive education, but of that of more than ten others

who are never likely to make anything by it. How

extravagant soever the fees of counsellors at law may

sometimes appear, their real retribution is never equal to

this.

Those professions keep their level, however, with other

oupations, and notwithstanding these discouragements, all

the most generous and liberal spirits are eager to crowd

into them. Two different causes contribute to remend

, the desire of the reputation which attends upon

superiorexcellence in any of them; and, secondly, the

natural confidence which every man has, more or less, not

only in his own abilities, but in his own good fortune.

To excel in any profession, in which but few arrive at

mediocrity, is the most decisive mark of what is called

genius or superior talents. The public admiration which

attends upon such distinguished abilities, makes always a

part of their reward;a greater or smaller in proportion as

it is higher or lower

in degree. It makes a considerable part of it in the

profession of physic;a still greater perhaps in that of law;

in poetry and philosophy it makes almost the whole.