The Kemper herald. (Scooba, Miss.) 1875-1908, 1907-10-17

Smith long ago said: BE what ma
ture intended you for and you will
succeed, but be anything else and you
will be a thousand times worse than
nothing" There can be no greater
mistake than to bend your design
where your genius does not incline.
Emerson wisely says that 1.-The crown
Ing fortune of a man is to be born
with a bias to some pursuit which
finds him in employment and happi-
ness" while Shakespeare asserts:
ITO business that we love. we rise
betimes,
And go to it with delight"
No man can struggle VIGOROUSLY
against his own character, and n OF
the first lessons of life is to learn
what groove we are intended to I'LL.
Evidences of ones right calling will
manifest themselves early in life. Han
del, the famous composer, whose father
was a physician, was intended for the
profession of law, and the father did
all he could to discourage the boys
fondness for music, but he got an old
spinet and practiced on it secretly In
a hayloft; he produced an opera be-
fore he was fifteen. Beethoven COM
posed at thirteen, while Mozart gave
concerts at six.
Victor Hugo presented a poem to
the Academy at fifteen, Goethe wrote
at ten, Pope at fourteen, at sixteen
Bacon had successfully pointed out
the errors in Aristotle's philosophy,
while Pascal at the same age wrote a
treatise on the Comic Sections. Bach
used to copy whole books of music by
moonlight when he was denied a AN
die. Napoleon was at the head Of
armies at ten years of age. At this
time, when a student at Brienne, writ
ing to his mother, he said: with
Homer in my pocket and my sword at
my side, / hope to fight my way
through the world"
Murillo, the famous Spanish artist,
filled the margins of his school books
with drawings. Michelangelo, whose
parents punished him for covering the
walls with sketches, declaring he was
no SON of theirs should he become an
artist, spent whole nights copying
drawings by moonlight, which he dared
not bring home.
Calico, who discovered the princi-
pie of the pendulum at eighteen and
invented both the microscope and the
telescope, was set apart by his parents
for a physician, but when compelled to
study physiology, he would hide his
Euclid and secretly work out difficult
problems. Lorraine, the painter, was
apprenticed by his parents to a pastry
cook. Arkwright's parents appren-
ticed him to a barber. 1t is a serious
mistake for parents to wish their sons
to be reproductions of themselves.
John Jacob Astor's father wanted to
make a butcher Of his boy, but the
commercial instinct was strong enough
in him to make him run away from
home and come to America.
Fathers, don't try to make that boy
another you-one of you will do.
The father of Daniel Webster deter
mined that Daniel should become a
farmer; he took the boy out into the
field and showed him how to cut hay,
but no matter how the father fixed the
scythe, it didn't hang to suit Daniel;
until the old man in despair and dis
gust exclaimed: Get out of the field
and hang that scythe to suit yourself"
Daniel hung the scythe on a tree and
said: Father, there, 1t hangs to suit
me-"
Many of the worlds most successful
men have failed in one or more pur-
suits before they finally got upon the
right track. Barnum failed in four
teen different occupations before he
discovered he was a born Snowman.
Goldsmith failed as a physician; but
who else could have written "The De-
serted village?" Cromwell was a
farmer at forty and Grant a tanner at
thirty-eight. Moody, an Indifferent
shoe salesman, became after middle
life the worlds greatest evangelist.
No man will ever do his best until he
fills his proper niche. One of the most
mischievous notions that ever have OBJ
tanned Judgement in the popular mind
is the belief that a man to be respect
ed must be a doctor, lawyer or a
preacher-an idea which has spoiled
many good carpenters, done injustice
to the anvil and committed fraud upon
the potato patch. would rather my
boy became a shoemaker and put gen.
Jus in his shoes than become a preach
er, preaching sermons that nobody
wanted to hear. Many an ambitious
parent forces a boy to become a doc
tor or a lawyer when measuring tape
and calico would have been the fttest
thing for him to do, while on the con-
trary we find men selling dry goods
whose adroitness at parry, and whose
fertility of in every exigency
show that nature designed them for
the pulpit or the bar.
There are thousands of men in the
learned professions defeated and dis
pirited who might have been success
full farmers and look upon the farmers
life with envy and chagrin, while
thousands more who have been pitch
forked through a course of Latin and
Greek, with college honors thick upon
their heads, are reduced to necessities
which degrade them in their own esti-
nation and are Inundated by the
wretched compensation which accom-
panies the average professional career.
All callings in life are alike honorable