The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-03-03
Men Who Get Side-Tracked.
 Yankee Blade.

Yankee Blade.
 The Boston Herald lately published number of interviews with men who had become "'side- tracked" in life.
 By this is meant men, who, though willing to work, yet were unable to find anything congenial to do.
 They were men who had somehow got out of the current of the great forces in which the world is moving, and were stranded, as it were, like helpless hulks along the sands of time. There are more such men and women in every community than most people imagine.
 Perhaps the most numerous class of men who get side-tracked are those who start in life in an occupation for which they have no natural aptitude. There are thousands of farmer boys who never should remain on the farm the loud protestations of the agri- cultural press to the contrary not withstanding. There are, doubtless, men who make a life business stirring the soil when they ought to be stir ring the senate; and, on the contrary, perhaps, there are men who are trying to stir the senate who ought to be stirring the soil. Good business men are frequently spoilt to make poor preachers; and there are many large and heavy lawyers who would make ideal blacksmiths; and there are some slender and unsuccessful blacksmiths with the keen logical brain and the shrewd masterful mind of the lawyer Such men are side- tracked for life, unless there is some great event crosses their track, such as crossed the track of Grant, the teamster, or Cromwell, the country squire. But no doubt there are many Grants who always team, and many Cromwells who never leave the farm. There are many men who start out in life, like hunters, on the wrong trail. They never bring down their game because their game has gone in another direction. They are like fishermen who bob for cod in a trout brook or start a-whaling on an inland pond.
 There are some men who are side tracked for life at their very birth. They are born into mesh of circum- stances from which there is no extri- cation. Of course it is easy enough to say that a man, like water, will al- ways find his level but it is hard for water to rise plumb with it's fountain head when confined in an underground pipe. It would have been difficult for Shakespeare to assert his claim to inn mortality if he had been born in Pata- gonia, and we would never have heard of Plato if he had first seen the light in Scythia. To say nothing of the hereditary influences that mould the unborn man, the environment of the young humans infancy usually shapes and directs his destiny, so irreyocably that only men of the strongest will and the toughest mental and physical fibre can ever counteract the impetus that is given them in childhood. To be sure there are few who Burst their births invidious bar,
 And grasp the skirts of happy chance,
 And breast the blows of circumsta And grapple with their evil star, but men of such heroic breed are always so few that they are perpetu- ally source or special wonder.
 The lesson that young people should gain from all this is the importance of studying their own aptitudes. In choosing a profession do not consult your egotism, but your personal fitness; and if the surroundings of your birth are unfavorable to your fullest development, overcome them as much as possible by the indomita- ble stubbornness of your own will. To do this, learn to think for your self at as early an age as possible, and you will soon learn that a man we'll intrenched within himself is able to rise above the expressions and con- tracting force of circumstances. Above all things do not get side tracked at the start.