The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1916-07-06
Developing Talent
BY Madison c. Peters in Reformatory
Record

AS the key is made for the lock and the
pillar prepared for the socket, so has every
one been sent into this world for definite
design. Our first business is to find out
what groove we are intended to fill. 1t is
just as hard TO run a four-inch slide on
| three-inch groove as it is to succeed in any
business 10 which ones genius does not in
cline. AS Dean Swift has it, dog by in
stinct turns aside from the ditch too deep
and wide, but man alone in his folly COM
bats nature, and where she loudly cries for
beaI, with obstinacy fixes there.
James Russell Lowell said: every man
is born with his business or profession in
him. and evidences of ones inclination
towards the right calling in life usually
manifest themselves quite early in life.
Handel, when a little fellow secretly
bought clavichord, hid it away in the
attic and at midnight used to go up there
and play on it, muffling the strings of the
| instrument with bits of wood and cloth
so that the softened sounds would not
awake the sleeping inmates of the house.
The call of his genius was the call of God.
Benjamin West began his career as
painter when boy in the attic of his home
in making brushes out of the long hair of
| the family cat, after the parents had meanly
| hidden his brush.
Napoleon was at the head of armies when
ten years of age. He was then pupil at
the military school at Brienne. He wrote
in my pocket and my sword by my side l
hope to fight my way through the world"
If l am now talking with father
would urge him to let his boy absolutely
alone in the determination of his life call
ing. Too many fathers imagine their boy
a sort of duplicate of themselves. Nature
never makes any duplicates. One of you
is enough. Do not spoil your boy by try
ing to make another one out of him like
yourself. You are enough.
The father of Daniel Webster was de-
termined to make farmer out of Daniel.
He took him into the field and showed him
how to cut hay, but Daniel just tinkered
with the scythe. 1t hung too far out and
then hung to far in, and no matter how the
father fixed the scythe it did not hang to
suit Daniel. In despair the father told the
boy: "Hang that scythe to suit YOURSELF
Daniel hung it on tree, saying: "There
it hangs to suit me- Daniel was failure
as farmer, but he was successful as an
American Statesman.
The father of John Adams was deter
mined to make his boy shoemaker. He
gave him pair of uppers to cut out by a
pattern which had a three cornered hole in
it to hang it up by. The future Statesman
followed the pattern, hole and all. A. T.
Stewart was set apart by his parents for the
ministry. He was pitch-forked through a
course of Latin and Greek and to escape a
course in Theology he came to America.
Before he drifted into his proper calling as
a merchant he taught school and only
found the bent of mis- genius through the
accident of having lent money to friend
The latter, with failure imminent, insisted
that his creditor should take his shop as the
only means of securing the money. He
die so and found his calling.
A young man who might become first
rate mechanic or scientific farmer chances
to have ambitious parents who think it
more honorable for their son to become a
preacher, doctor or lawyer. He is sent
to college, gets mis- diploma, breaches SER
mons no body wants to hear or becomes
lawyer.
In another case boy is forced by unwise
parents to become a merchant when nature
shows by his skill in hair-splitting, his
adroitness at parry, his fertility of resources
in every exigency, that he was designed for
the bar or the forum.
One of the most mischievous notions
which has ever obtained lodgment in the
popular mind is the notion that man to
be respected or respectable must enter one
of the learned professions, or at any rate
seek some dignifed position.
All callings in life are alike honorable,
if they are useful. The trouble is with
most men they are more anxious to make
living by their wits than by work. Too
many men are afraid of job. They want
a position. An freshman said, when asked
what he would like to be: ''For nice,
clean, easy job, should like to be bish-
OPP
l should like to put upon the walls of
every school house of the land the lines of
Pope:
Honor and shame from condition rise.
Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
ooeooooOOeoOoOoooooooooOoo
. SMILES