"In part, the success of the culture of professionalism could be attributed to the fact that American Mid-Victorians constructed a secular theodicy. Despite its flux, madness, and seeming irrationality, the world was a rational place, and every person could discover his 'real me' within the natural confines of space and time. Such firm notions as career and character, for instance, organized a human life totally, from beginning to end....To know that every occurrence had a reason, a justification, both emboldened and inspired a Mid-Victorian. The scientific assurance that the most despised weakness -- human failure -- was rooted within the nature of the fallen victim resolved the thorny question of responsibility. Success was a personal triumph for the middle-class individual, as failure was a personal disaster.
"Evil in the Mid-Victorian theodicy stemmed from the inability to realize one's potential, the inability to commit oneself to place and time, to subjugate carnal desires and their distractions, to approach a life professionally. The flaw was internal. Society blamed the ineffectual individual for his own failure. No one else was at fault."
-- The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America, Burton J. Bledstein, 1976, p. 112-113.
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