Thread: They called this goose a Doctor. That makes a bus driver a Professor?

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Interestingly, my childhood dentist was one of the last who qualified by an apprenticeship rather than a university course. While the academically trained younger dentists looked down on him, I found recently that my current dentist knows of him as the developer of a regularly used procedure that is named after him. It is an unusual name, so it was very likely the same person, but I confirmed this by talking to my dentist cousin, who worked for him for a couple of years after graduation.

Quite a few professions that today require a degree for qualification were apprenticeships (or similar on the job training) until the late nineteenth century or even later. These would include lawyers, accountants, engineers, dentists, as mentioned, and (1970s) nurses.

Dentists and optometrists and pharmacists in Qld in my youth were not university trained. Their qualification was LDQ, LOQ, LPQ. Licenced Dentist Qld, etc. What now call themselves accountants were RBQ, Registered Book-keeper Qld. All these were technical college trained. Engineers were a mixed bag. Some being university trained from about the 1920's I believe and their quals were B. Eng. Many had gone through the path of tradesmen then the Qld. Diploma of Engineering. These were often far better engineers than the degree men having had many years of practical experience and the academic learning. There was a degree of snobbery in this profession. The Institute of Engineers would not recognise the diploma men for membership unless they passed an exam. It was also unwritten that applicants were not passed the first time.

Originally Posted by POD

I'm not sure that lawyer would be on that list, as it is one of the three originally recognised 'professions', each of which has always had a high level of education.

Also, (not 100% sure of this) I don't think it is actually illegal to call oneself 'Doctor', rather it's illegal to represent oneself as a medical practitioner unless you are registered and licensed.
I know it's not the intent, but comparing the training of engineers, dentists, nurses etc prior to the university degree model as 'apprenticeships' paints an inaccurate picture. Even prior to the university model, these were far more academically focused than a trade apprenticeship.

"until 1846 lawyers in England were not required to have a university degree and were trained by other attorneys by apprenticeship or in the Inns of Court." (Wikipedia) This would have applied equally to Australia, and I am pretty certain that the requirement for a law degree here was significantly later.

More academically focussed, in the sense that "book learning" was required, although perhaps not in the case of nurses in Florence Nightingale's time, but they were all apprentices in the sense of learning the profession on the job as assistants to qualified practitioners, and some of them, including engineering and dentistry at least, were actually called apprenticeships.

The very earliest engineers were in some cases almost completely self taught, especially mechanical engineers - James Watt was one of these, prevented from setting up as an instrument maker because he had not served a seven year apprentice. He gained employment outside the guild, working for the university (not the public) and used this to eventually become one of the great engineers of history, and helping to establish engineering as a discipline.

George Stephenson is another renowned engineer who was entirely self educated. Illiterate until he was eighteen, he never served an apprenticeship or had any formal degree or even certificate or diploma, but was largely responsible for the development of steam railways. His son Robert did only six months at university before leaving and going on to become an FRS and President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Just realised I mis-read the post I quoted above- I was thinking of the 20th rather than 19th century- the reference to nursing (1970s) threw me. Although even the hospital-based nursing training that my mother did in the 1940s- having seen some of her lecture notes- had an academic rigor that was nothing remotely like an apprenticeship. Not like the one that I did in the late 1970s at least.