The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1908-12-20
THE PROBLEM OF FINDING
RIGHT JOB IN THE WORLD

Love and occupation have one grand
grievance in common. Every man
knows what he wants in both cases
but not one in a million is able to Sc
cure it in either The resignation OF
President Eliot of a beloved profession
which he holds has no equal in the
world, is the occasion of a curious
weighing of the claims of love (mainly
married love- and work as factors in
human happiness. The debaters adj
nit that both go wrong, but give the
balance of power for veal or woe tC
the odds of the job, and this for the
unromantic reason that man can re
concile himself to Jane when he wants
Nancy, but has not yet acquired the
psychological process of finding charm
in making bricks or building canals
when he would fain be making books
or founding colleges.
''Novelists are vastly to blame" says
the moralizer, for stuffing the youth
of the nation with Tom Lawson tips
on the quest of happiness. They keep
ton of marrying the one girl. when
every sensible man knows that if ne
hadn't met Nancy he would have met
Jane. and it would have been all the
same. The real secret of happiness
is to be in love with your job; to dc
work that you like to do: that interests
you; that you believe in" 1t. is plain
20 -,
the end there is an appeal to the lover
to make good in the case-an appeal
too. that utterly fails. 1T is not SO
much Nancy as what your fond desir-
ing imagination made her seem TO be
that you love- Try this process on
your job Exactly and with the same
result.
No psychological process known can
preserve the charm of Nancy when the
fond desiring Imagination has faced
the counter reality in the captured
prize. No more can a fond magma.
ton make sweet the job that nature
has made distasteful and unfit. do
work that you like to do; that inter
ests you; that you believe in; that's
happiness Undoubtedly, and it is
about as easy as marrying the woman
that interests you. that you believe in
that you can love to the end.
All Not Obliged to Marry.
"A sad confusion" as Benson has it
runs through the world of labor as the
world of love, yet certainly Carlyle is
right when he says everybody is OF
ought to be unhappy till he finds out
what to do" The law of life. physic
al life, presses harder upon the individ-
ual in the one case than the other, too
since men are really not obliged to
marry. at least not yet, while every
man has his own living to make some
way. Perhaps this is why the labor
question is intruding itself everywhere
above all others. so that love and re-
ligion are made more or less Subser-
Went to it, and sensible men" are ad-
monished to turn from the lady to the
job for their highest hope of happiness
UnquestionaLly there is meaning il
the movement, for Stevenson is right
when he says. there is no subject
iiolS Nltdl W lbdu llldl
whatever it may be. which is the occu
patton or delight of his life-which is
his tool to earn or serve with, an6
which, if it be unworthy, stamps him
self as mere incubus on the shoulders
of laboring humanity"
The high prize of life is clearly also
as another sage tells us. ito be born
to some pursuit which finds man in
employment and happiness il
be to make baskets. or broadswords
or canals, or statutes. or songs" But
all this truth of worth and pleasure in
congenial work is different matter
from the demand for interest and JOY
IN any poor, irksome job that sore
pressed multitudes must undertake tc
exc out barren existence. 1t is one
thing for a high and noble scholar K
find joy in reaching and molding the
intellectual forces of the world. as
president of a great college. and quite
another matter for an army of hard
luck scholars to wiring felicity out OF
thoTude and uncungenial>la which