The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1900-03-02
goodbye.


And why? None understand.
Had Cod when shaping our two lives,
But let them move together,
So hands could clasp ana soul meet soul
In fair or cloudy weather.
How differently this day would seem,
For through the tear-dimmed eyes,
Fair Hope would smile and point the way
TO future Paradise.
wonder If the tangled web
VIII ever be made straight?
Cog grant that we at last may go
Annie L. Gillespie.
Choosing a Profession for the Boy.
Among the questions which most close
ly touch the heart life of the home,
which are most earnestly and tenderly
discussed by the fire on the hearth, none
takes precedence of that very important
one-Which profession shall my boy
choose: The boy is in collegc-at Yale,
or Harvard, or Princeton, or he is in a
Western university, or it may be he is
doing postgraduate work across the
ocean. in Oxford or Berlin Wherever he
may be enrolled as student, however to
himself and his comrades he seems a
man, to the anxious parents who are try
ing to forecast his future, he is still their
laddle. the object of their dearest solicit
tnde, and. secretly or openlys the posses
sion in which they take most pleasure
and pride. He and they are confronted
with no slight difficulty when the ques-
ton to be decided, balancing sometimes
on the slender edge of d hair, is whether
the son of the house shall enter business,
or study for some liberal ayocation; for
the law, or medicine, or journalism. If
the boy has already chosen for himself,
If he has decided preference for the
ministry of religion, or if his career, i'm
peratively reckoning, has secured its mi
tlatlve for army or navy at one of the
great schools, West Point or Annapolis,
the thing is practically arranged as to the
present. What is to come hereafter will
depend largely on the stuff in the boy,
and, i'll lesser degree, on the opportunities
he may meet after his preliminary train
ing is over.
The majority of cases are not so easily
and agreeably adjusted. Parents see, or
think they see, that their sons have spe-
cial fitness along certain lines: the boys
themselves are pulled another way.
Young men, brought up III plain homes,
with limited means, find beside them,
shoulder to shoulder in their college life,
other young men, equally gifted, equally
ambit ious. equally clean of life and pure
VI si1ul, WIZ nave Nudl appears 10 the
poorer ones Il tremendous advantage
plenty of money. That it is not neces-
sarily the advantage it seems does not
occur to the often impecuniOus and al
ways cramped and inconvenienced stu
dent, who feels day by day the clog of an
easily-emptied pocketbook. His strong
desire is to plunge at once in the business
world, to make money, and to make it
rapidly. Aghast at the years of study
required in the medical or the law school,
the lad declares against what he regards
as the folly of delay, and disappoints the
hopes of the father and mother who have
always meant him for a learned profess
sion. He may be right; they may be
wrong. Who can predict? Only time
can solve the question.
a boy is meant by nature for a scien-
the student, or for an artist. His father.
successful, shrewd, clever, has no ma
thence with the thoughtful investigator.
no consideration for the dreamer of
dreams Here is the golden chance the
boy opposite would covet and appreciate;
1T is lost on the poet, on the student, on
the man cut out for books and quiet, and
a clustered existence. Again, there is
friction in the home, and puzzled faces
frown round the glowing hearth.
"A counsel of prudence in these very
common crises is: Wait. Do not force
events. Leave something to Divine
Providence. Trust the boy whom Won
have brought up, and guide, never seek
to drive, him, at that parting of the ways
Which most of all is his personal and vital
concern:-Margaret E. Sangster in Col
lier's Weekly.