ABSTRACT
Discussions of the characteristics of professionalism have been a recurrent theme in twentieth-century sociological writing from Flexner's statement in 1915 to the publication of Goode's work in 1969.(1) Most of the reached conclusions are, however, initially derived from an analysis of occupations whose professionalism developed primarily in the nineteenth century.(2) Clearly there are exceptions to this generalization in the case of occupations such as the Church and the Law which originated at a much earlier period, but even here, important professional characteristics were formally established during the Victorian period. Thus many of the universal characteristics which are used to describe professionalism today reflect the manner in which occupational groups had reached a particular stage of development by 1900. Of these, one characteristic in particular was indicative of the extent of professionalism in the Victorian army.
