The German educational system before WWII might be the model for such sentiments, except the state produced quotas for each trade/discipline. The American experience of having more lawyers than engineers wouldn’t have been allowed.

A friend had grown up in that system, and wanted to be an architect. Hans didn’t score high enough in the aptitude tests to get a slot in the engineering curriculum (he could choose his preference -once- but had to qualify) so he was dropped in a pool and was assigned a trade school for bakers and became a baker.

Hans had quite a collection of achitecture books and a drafting table where he dabbled in drawing up floorplans. His designs were loaded with storage and efficient flow patterns, and he used large openings between rooms that approximated what today would be called open floorplans.

If Hans had been born a few decades earlier in America, he might have been a successful architect in the Craftsman style.

There were five members of the Council, three of the male gender and two of the female. Their hair was white and their faces were cracked as the clay of a dry river bed. They were old. They sat before us and they did not move. And we saw no breath to stir the folds of their white togas. But we knew that they were alive, for a finger of the hand of the oldest rose, pointed to us, and fell down again. This was the only thing which moved, for the lips of the oldest did not move as they said: “Street Sweeper.”

– Ayn Rand,
Anthem