The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1872-12-27
CHOOSING AN OCCUPATION FOR !
YOUNG MAN.

If boy is constantly whiting
sticks, fond parents say that he
has marked constructive ability;
or if he can whistle one or two
notes of an air correctly, she will
be a great musicians" or if he can
draw with reasonable accuracy,
chat child is q born artist" If
these presumed or assumed evil
dences of genius are acted upon,
and those in authority seize arbl-
trarily upon the young man and
force him into a trade or art, on
the ground of their being better
able to Judge than he is for him
self, the possibility, nay, the prob
ability is that he will turn out a
Harold Skimpole, of whose class
the world has far too many already.
He sketches little; thinkers
little with tools; drums a little on
q piano; and in time falls into
line with the rank and file of the
noble army of incompetents and
revilers of fate. He may protest
with all his strength in his earlier
years that he is not fitted for the
occupation chosen for him; he
may demand to be transferred into
some other calling that his soul
hungers after; it is all in vain if
some one in authority, be the same
parent or guardian, says: "Your
profession has been chosen for
you and you must follow it; your
elders have had more experience
than you and can tell better, by
reason of it, what you need;" and
so the young man is condemned
for life. He goes moping all his
days and refuses to be comforted,
simply because his heat is not in
what he is doing. He is out of
his element; he disturbs the ma
chinery of the world; he is as bad
as a broken wheel on q train; eve
rything with which he is connect
ed goes hating and humping and
jumping because of him. If he
does not reach the highest place in
his profession, his elders, with as
tonishing inconsistency, upbraid
him and say that he has no ambi
ton, no energy, no desire to sue
coed; when the simple fact is that
he has no qualification to COM
mand success.
"How can 1 know about thing
I dunno nothing about2 exclaimed
an exasperated and badgered wit
ness in the box. How can / have
inspiration to preach when 1 am
always thinking about machinery;
or paint, when I am always wish
ing to preach, when divine truths
fire my heart to go forth and turn
men from the error of their waysr
A man out OF his place says these
things ut heart if not in actual
words, and his whole life is embit-
tered by the blindness of his cid
ers who would not see, but claimed
the right, because they had the
power, to squeeze a human heart
into the corner they thought it
should fill. For it is crushing the
heart out of the man TO make the
boy travel in q circuit he is unfit
ted for. All his energies and am
bitiou reach forward to one goal
all his nature is bent upon that
one thing, and because you can
not see as he sees, oh parent or.
guardiani because you are not;
him and do not love it as he loves
it, you destroy his future power.
1t is a serious responsibility to as
sumo: to direct the calling in life
a Young man shall follow, an ac-
ton to be taken only upon great
deliberation. Whatever he under
takes he must stick to. In the
early years of his life, when the
world expects but little of him, he
must study or work hard TO be
qualified for the later ones, when
it exacts a great DEAL He can not
be always Young; he can not have
two youths; he must give his
young life, his bright hopes, his
aspirations to the work in hand.
What If his heart is far from it
and he is longing with all his
strength fHor that other calling
which you have put out OF his
reach? Yon might as well 60 out
| into the world when he is OF age,
IS some foreign parents do, and
selects wife for hin. With equal
consistency yon might say: 81