seems clear that as
nations advance in civilization they will be driven to ... limit the
number of those who enter (the professions) to some reasonable estimate of
the number who are actually needed,'

"And in the face of this there were, in 1910, 23,927 students in
preparation to further congest the profession of medicine! It's an
inexcusable waste, for, though there's much the statistician hasn't done,
there's little he can't do when he sets his mind to it. If he can
estimate the market for the output of a shoe factory, why not the market
for the output of a professional school? It ought to be possible to tell
how many crown fillings the people of Omaha will need in their teeth in
1920 and just how many dentists must be graduated from the dental schools
in time to do it."

PROBLEMS FOR LAWYERS AND PREACHERS

So much for the physician. While we have not at hand any exact statistics
in regard to lawyers, there is a pretty general feeling amongst all who
have studied the subject that the legal profession is even more
over-crowded than the medical. God alone knows all the wickednesses that
are perpetrated in this old world because there are too many lawyers for
proper and necessary legal work and so, many of them live just as close to
the dead line of professional ethics as is possible without actual
disbarment. And yet, with all their devices and vices, the average lawyer
is compelled to get along upon an income of less than $1,000 a year.

The ministry is, perhaps, even more over-crowded than either medicine or
law. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, there are
from four to a dozen churches in most places where one would render far
better service. These churches are, many of them, poorly supported, and,
therefore, inefficient. Yet each must have a pastor. Second, the fact that
a theological or pre-theological student can secure aid in pursuing his
education tempts many young men into the ministry. Recently a university
student called upon us. He told us he was working his way through the
university by supplying pulpits on Sunday. "But it's hard work," he
confessed, "particularly when one must enthusiastically proclaim things he
does not believe." This young man was, doubtless, an exception, but we
have seen many poorly equipped for the ministry, "studying theology
because they could not afford to take some other post-graduate work."

How greatly over-crowded this ancient and honorable profession