Is social work a profession ?

Before beginning to consider whether social work is or is not a profession, I must confess a very genuine doubt as to my competency to undertake the discussion. My acquaintance with social work, with the literature of social work, and with social workers is distinctly limited,- far too much so. Hence if the conclusions that I have reached seem to you unsound or academic, I beg you to understand that I should not be disposed to press them. The word "profession" or "professional" may be loosely or strictly used. In its, broadest significance it is simply the opposite of the word "amateur." A person is in this sense a "professional" if. his entire time is devoted to an activity, as against one who is only transiently or provisionally so engaged. The professional nurse, baseball player, dancer, and cook thus earn a livelihood by concentrating their entire attention on their respective vocations and expect to go on doing so; whereas the amateur nurse enlists only for the duration of the war, or the amateur baseball player, during early youth or college life. Social work is from this point of view a profession for those who make a full-time job of it; it is not a profession for those who incidentally contribute part of themselves to active philanthropy. However, I have not been asked to decide whether social work is a full-time or a part-time occupation, whether, in a word, it is a professional or an amateur occupation. I assume that every difficult occupation requires the entire time of those who take it seriously, though of course work can also be found for volunteers with something less. than all their time or strength to offer. The question put to me is a more technical one. The term profession, strictly used, as opposed to business or handicraft, is a title of peculiar distinction, coveted by many activities. Thus far it has been pretty indiscriminately used. Almost any occupation not obviously a business is apt to classify itself as a profession. Doctors, lawyers, preachers, musicians, engineers, journalists, trained nurses, trapeze and dancing masters, equestrians, and chiropodists—all speak of their "profession". Their claims are supposed to be established beyond question if they are able to affix to their names one of those magical combinations of letters that either are or look like an academic degree. On this basis chiropody would be a profession because the New York School of Chiropody confers the degree of M. Cp., and social work might qualify at once with the degree S. W. Some years ago the president of a western university told me that he had compiled a list of all the degrees ever conferred by his institution. In the list appeared a very ominous combination of letters, - nothing less, in a word, than N. G. I was relieved to be informed that this was not an effort to characterize the entire academic output, but signified only "graduate nurse". If the academic degree decides, nursing is a profession for that reason, even were there no other. We need waste no time in endeavoring to formulate the concept of "professional", if the concept is to include the indiscriminate activities. touched on above.