The new age. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1896-1905, 1906-08-25

No matter how much or how little
talent man may have, the first requi-
site to his success in life Is the choice
Of a calling. There Is no way of ascer.
tanning how many men out of 1000
miss their calling, but apparently the
world Is almost full Of square men In
round holes and large proportion Of
the manhood of the race Is misdlrected
and practically thrown away. The rea-
son Of this Is that there is nothing more
difficult for a young man or for his
parents and friends to do than to tell
what he Is made for and what he should
devote his life to. Take the young man
himself first, and he has two obstacles
to deal with. In the first place, his best
talent may be slowest Of all his DOW
ers to develop. Some parts of his body
grow faster than other parts and 1t Is
80 with his mental faculties. Most fire.
quently his master passion will show
itself from infancy, but In many cases
he reaches manhood before be develops
the gifts or traits which mark out his
life work. In the second place, self
knowledge Is the last faculty that any
human being develops. During child
hood and early manhood, when he needs
self-knowledge to determine what oc-
cupation to follow, he knows absolute
ly nothing about himself Indeed,
man Is fortunate If by the time he is
gray headed he understands his strong
and his weak points and knows what
he can do and what he can not do. OF
course, these two considerations make
1t difficult also for young mans par
ents to advise and direct him. They
have seen his tastes and inclinations
change several times already and they
do not know but they may change sew
eral times more. Sometimes a youths
instincts will lead him Alright and mis-
lead those who have the control Of him.
1t Is related of famous painter that
his choice led him In bOyhOOd to obtain
In an artists studio and
that the artist, after watching him a
while, advised him to limit his ambition
to grinding the colors. This accounts
for the large number of emlnently sue
cessful men who start wrong and
change from one calling to another be-
fore they achieve success. Some great
men have, indeed, in this way acquired
a reputation for instability and gen
eral worthlessness before they struck
the gait that made them famous. This
makes 1t an exceedingly perplexing
problem for a young man to determine
what he will do and the perplexity Is
tenfold greater now than it was fifty
years ago. There were hundreds of
years before that time during which the
leading trades and professions were sta
BILE and almost stationary, but within
one or two generations, owing to the
ravages Of inventions and Iabor-saving
they have all either disap-
peared or been transformed. There is
scarcely business that a young man
can take up to-day which may not be-
come obsolete in few years. In fact.
the only thing that Is permanent is
knowledge. The time will never come
when it will not help a man in the race
of life to be acquainted with mathe-
MATES, physics, history, geography.
chemistry and manual train
ing. Unless he knows something Of
these sciences he may be unable to dis
cover what he Is made for or to do il
after no discovers IL Rovond +hi.
such is the present condition of the
arts, manufactures, science and poll
tics-a young man Is literally compelled
to be an OppOrtunist. That is, he must
do what he can until he can do some
thing different and better. If he Is in
dustriOus, sober. economical and watch
full kind Providence will little by lit
tie direct him Alright.