to me all that is unselfish in our vocational lives, all which has to do with the welfare of those in whose service our lives are spent—our clients and the public.
A glance at any of the recognized professions will show, I think, that each has its own titular objective that corresponds to our art of architecture, and each, by virtue of necessity, its destructive, though essential, commercial corner, which in each case is balanced by this unselfish counter-irritant—its professionalism.
In medicine, law, engineering, in fact in any profession, as in architecture the titular objective is always essentially selfish and full of the limitations of selfishness but in no other particular are these objectives at all alike nor do they offer any common interest; while in the commercial and professional elements all professions seem to be clearly alike—the one element an undesirable, and the other a most desirable, common factor to all, and so of surpassing importance, it seems to me, in this matter of inter-relationship which we are considering.
It is to the possibilities of the professional element as a democratizing influence within each profession, and as common ground between all professions, that I wish to direct your attention.
Art—through its exclusiveness tends to disorganize, to separate into cliques and then to sub-divide them, a process that results in impotence. This is why art affords no bond that binds, and why its associations are so often ineffective and short-lived.
Commerce—on the other hand has long since recognized the importance of effective organization, which makes it such a terrible thing with which to contend, and results in such a secondary role for Art, where they assume to practice as partners. On the other hand in his professionalism, the least among us or among any of our brother professions, may aspire to be the peer of the greatest in the purity of his profession, and in his joy in its practice. It is for this reason that the professional principle stands high as a possible bond of union among and between all those who aim to render skilled service for a fee shorn of contingent profit, and where the interests of client and public are cared for first.
I referred a moment ago to “professional ineffectiveness.” What I had in mind was the condition resulting not only through the failure to help each other, but subconsciously, perhaps, through the habit of interference with the successes of each other, that characterize the relationships of professional men,—a condition brought about, I think, quite naturally as a result of professional intelligence which clearly discounts the assumptions and presumptions in others that it condones in itself. A perfect familiarity with,—in fact the profession of,—some fifty odd sciences, each worthy a man’s life study, is an architectural assumption or presumption that may well explain the discount with which Medicine and Law are apt to receive our professional advances; while between law and medicine the assumption is as aggravated and the discount as complete—witness the past ten years of futile effort at closer association between those two great representative professions. While many will fail to accredit the truth of this, my latest assumption, I doubt if any will deny the prevailing custom among professional men to indulge in tales of discomfiture to and of each other and before audiences prone to be more interested than discerning. To me the story that begins “once there was an honest lawyer,”—like those which exploit the disasters which result from our own traditional weakness in the matter of estimating costs,—have caused our respective professions to lose enough legitimate patronage to explain the full difference between success and failure in countless professional lives.
If through professionalism as a common factor we could reach an inter-professional understanding based on helping instead of hurting each other, the result to the young man in the profession would, I think, be beyond price. If only some one of our brother professions would catch from our Post-War activity a kindred self-questioning desire, and from his example others might follow,—is it too much to hope that from some broad-minded doctor or brilliant
exponent of law, may not come the suggestion of a brotherhood of professions based on this common factor—this professional principle of—skilled service to others? A brotherhood or league not of a chosen few, but of all those callings that can qualify as practicing professionally; and in such an event might we not find recompense sufficient to have fully justified the creation of our Post-War Committee?
This idea of a Brotherhood or League of Professions is a very pleasant one to me, with its measureless program of accomplishment and its limitless possibilities. First the suggestion—followed by the response of all those who really are professional—gathering together to decide what the professional principle really is, and who shall carry its banner—followed by organization, perhaps of a permanent Ethical Court with which to safeguard its future, and wherebv each profession may, with the help of the brother professions, do what alone we have all so far failed to do— really clean house.
I am so obsessed with this idea that I do not stop at anything short of an intellectual power capable of doing the undoable thing,—namely, setting a limit to the advance of that organized selfishness we call commerce, something that, it seems to me, must be done if there is to be preserved to mankind this priceless thing—the professional principle.
At all events such a brotherhood could not fail to result in eliminating all that cancellation of inter-professional effort that now obtains, and that alone would give to the professional beginner including the young architect, his chance to acquire a competency honestly, and before the juices of life are so dried up as to preclude his making any worthy contribution to the art to which he has devoted his life. After all, it is the welfare of this young architect which interests me, and which I had in mind when I asked the Board to create the Post-War Committee on Architectural Practice.
Following Mr. Kimball, N. Max Dunning, chairman of the Post-War Committee, very lucidly outlined the work of his committee. He stated that the mass of information that had been placed at the disposal of the committee was so great that in view of the impossibility of digesting it so soon it would lead to no definite good and would be unprofitable of results to endeavor to formulate an opinion at this time.
Mr. Dunning further stated that in his judgment two important things have been emphasized by our war experience; the value and necessity of organization and the proper appreciation of the value and nobility of service. These remarks were received with much applause, indicating that the chairman of the Post-War Committee had exactly stated the views of those present.
In opening the discussion, Mr. Magonigle said:
Tt is rather difficult to know just where to begin with this tremendous program and I suppose I may as well plunge in about the middle.
I should say in answer to the queries, Has the architect laid too much stress on the aesthetics and too little on the other values of his service? Has the architect been led to believe that architecture is the art of designing monumental buildings and Has he kept in touch with industrial methods? I should say that that would depend largely on the architect himself and upon his individual training and upon the district in which be was born, the district in which he was trained and the district in which he ultimately practises. Our whole social life is so complex, we are spread out in a measure so thin, our profession at least is
A glance at any of the recognized professions will show, I think, that each has its own titular objective that corresponds to our art of architecture, and each, by virtue of necessity, its destructive, though essential, commercial corner, which in each case is balanced by this unselfish counter-irritant—its professionalism.
In medicine, law, engineering, in fact in any profession, as in architecture the titular objective is always essentially selfish and full of the limitations of selfishness but in no other particular are these objectives at all alike nor do they offer any common interest; while in the commercial and professional elements all professions seem to be clearly alike—the one element an undesirable, and the other a most desirable, common factor to all, and so of surpassing importance, it seems to me, in this matter of inter-relationship which we are considering.
It is to the possibilities of the professional element as a democratizing influence within each profession, and as common ground between all professions, that I wish to direct your attention.
Art—through its exclusiveness tends to disorganize, to separate into cliques and then to sub-divide them, a process that results in impotence. This is why art affords no bond that binds, and why its associations are so often ineffective and short-lived.
Commerce—on the other hand has long since recognized the importance of effective organization, which makes it such a terrible thing with which to contend, and results in such a secondary role for Art, where they assume to practice as partners. On the other hand in his professionalism, the least among us or among any of our brother professions, may aspire to be the peer of the greatest in the purity of his profession, and in his joy in its practice. It is for this reason that the professional principle stands high as a possible bond of union among and between all those who aim to render skilled service for a fee shorn of contingent profit, and where the interests of client and public are cared for first.
I referred a moment ago to “professional ineffectiveness.” What I had in mind was the condition resulting not only through the failure to help each other, but subconsciously, perhaps, through the habit of interference with the successes of each other, that characterize the relationships of professional men,—a condition brought about, I think, quite naturally as a result of professional intelligence which clearly discounts the assumptions and presumptions in others that it condones in itself. A perfect familiarity with,—in fact the profession of,—some fifty odd sciences, each worthy a man’s life study, is an architectural assumption or presumption that may well explain the discount with which Medicine and Law are apt to receive our professional advances; while between law and medicine the assumption is as aggravated and the discount as complete—witness the past ten years of futile effort at closer association between those two great representative professions. While many will fail to accredit the truth of this, my latest assumption, I doubt if any will deny the prevailing custom among professional men to indulge in tales of discomfiture to and of each other and before audiences prone to be more interested than discerning. To me the story that begins “once there was an honest lawyer,”—like those which exploit the disasters which result from our own traditional weakness in the matter of estimating costs,—have caused our respective professions to lose enough legitimate patronage to explain the full difference between success and failure in countless professional lives.
If through professionalism as a common factor we could reach an inter-professional understanding based on helping instead of hurting each other, the result to the young man in the profession would, I think, be beyond price. If only some one of our brother professions would catch from our Post-War activity a kindred self-questioning desire, and from his example others might follow,—is it too much to hope that from some broad-minded doctor or brilliant
exponent of law, may not come the suggestion of a brotherhood of professions based on this common factor—this professional principle of—skilled service to others? A brotherhood or league not of a chosen few, but of all those callings that can qualify as practicing professionally; and in such an event might we not find recompense sufficient to have fully justified the creation of our Post-War Committee?
This idea of a Brotherhood or League of Professions is a very pleasant one to me, with its measureless program of accomplishment and its limitless possibilities. First the suggestion—followed by the response of all those who really are professional—gathering together to decide what the professional principle really is, and who shall carry its banner—followed by organization, perhaps of a permanent Ethical Court with which to safeguard its future, and wherebv each profession may, with the help of the brother professions, do what alone we have all so far failed to do— really clean house.
I am so obsessed with this idea that I do not stop at anything short of an intellectual power capable of doing the undoable thing,—namely, setting a limit to the advance of that organized selfishness we call commerce, something that, it seems to me, must be done if there is to be preserved to mankind this priceless thing—the professional principle.
At all events such a brotherhood could not fail to result in eliminating all that cancellation of inter-professional effort that now obtains, and that alone would give to the professional beginner including the young architect, his chance to acquire a competency honestly, and before the juices of life are so dried up as to preclude his making any worthy contribution to the art to which he has devoted his life. After all, it is the welfare of this young architect which interests me, and which I had in mind when I asked the Board to create the Post-War Committee on Architectural Practice.
Following Mr. Kimball, N. Max Dunning, chairman of the Post-War Committee, very lucidly outlined the work of his committee. He stated that the mass of information that had been placed at the disposal of the committee was so great that in view of the impossibility of digesting it so soon it would lead to no definite good and would be unprofitable of results to endeavor to formulate an opinion at this time.
Mr. Dunning further stated that in his judgment two important things have been emphasized by our war experience; the value and necessity of organization and the proper appreciation of the value and nobility of service. These remarks were received with much applause, indicating that the chairman of the Post-War Committee had exactly stated the views of those present.
In opening the discussion, Mr. Magonigle said:
Tt is rather difficult to know just where to begin with this tremendous program and I suppose I may as well plunge in about the middle.
I should say in answer to the queries, Has the architect laid too much stress on the aesthetics and too little on the other values of his service? Has the architect been led to believe that architecture is the art of designing monumental buildings and Has he kept in touch with industrial methods? I should say that that would depend largely on the architect himself and upon his individual training and upon the district in which be was born, the district in which he was trained and the district in which he ultimately practises. Our whole social life is so complex, we are spread out in a measure so thin, our profession at least is