The Room with the Little DoorMolineux, Roland Burnham
General
The Room with the Little Door
Molineux, Roland Burnham
Molineux, Roland Burnham; Prisoners -- New York (State) -- Biography; Prisons -- New York (State)
The admission of such testimony is, doubtless, necessary. The fields of
science, art, and industry are enormous; and in each, one man during one
life can only hope to acquire thorough knowledge of one small part of
his particular enclosure. Hence “specialties” have arisen—the one
lifework of one man. Specialties represent a movement of “from the
general to the particular.” In the field of science, for instance, is
the department of surgery; and of all kinds of surgeons is one
particular specialist, the dentist. So in art, music is but a little
part of all art, and the violinist but a specialist in music. Industry
classifies into business and agriculture, each in turn susceptible of
innumerable sub-divisions, each a specialty. By this arrangement it is
seen that almost every man is to some degree a specialist, or should be
one; therefore, when particular information is required it must be
sought from the specialist. We seek to appropriate his experience, and
naturally turn in our inquiry to those who seem best qualified to supply
our wants. The true expert should be, then, a very particular
specialist. In the field of industry and art we should require that he
be experienced and successful. In science, that he possess definite
knowledge—exactness.
So far, no complaint whatever can be made against the employment of
experts (specialists). It is a necessary thing; it occurs every day in
everyday life, and their testimony is very properly allowed in criminal
and other court proceedings. But it is undoubtedly wrong when used
unjustly; as, for instance, by the State or a very rich man against an
opponent too poor to protect himself—and the testimony of experts in
handwriting is often so used. It is especially unjust when an expert on
a scientific subject holds no other commission or diploma than one
bestowed upon him by—himself—an expert in handwriting has no other.
No one would employ a self-instructed physician, retain a self-taught
lawyer, or a chemist who never went to school; in fact, the
self-educated are almost excluded from the higher professions.
Consider the formal course of study necessary to become a physician, a
minister, or lawyer—schools and all their examinations, the four years
in college, and all the examinations pertinent thereto, and then the
special post-graduate courses at schools of law, medicine, or divinity.
We trust and respect these professions, because we know of their
preparation; this is their guarantee. They are tested over and over
again to see if they can do their work. Only then do they obtain
diplomas. We require this very thing from our engineers, firemen, coal
miners, and accountants before they are granted a license. But the
handwriting expert passes no examinations, and possesses no diploma. He
need not even procure a license.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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