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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 occupations. In the greater part of mechanic trades, success 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 succeeds, that one ought to gain all that should have been gained by the unsuccessful nineteen ones. The counselor 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 the fees of counselors at law may sometimes appear, their real retribution is never equal to this.
Those professions keep their level, however, with other occupations, and notwithstanding these discouragements, all the most generous and liberal spirits are eager to crowd into them. Two different causes contribute to recommend them. First, the desire of the reputation which attends upon superior excellence 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 fortune①.
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.
［377 words］
行文点评
本文观点新颖，从一个独特的角度向我们阐述了职业回报的衡量标准。第一段的第一句为主题句，紧接着作者引用具体数据围绕这一主题进行论证，具有较强的说服力。在第二段中，作者用however将话题一转，顺势引出了本文要讨论的问题：不同的职业有不同的衡量回报的标准。在最后一段，作者围绕这一观点展开了充分的论证。
