The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-07-07
Dorothy DIG Says
Helping the Young Find Themselves,
BY DOROTHY DIX.
Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer

wish to see. He finished school in |
June. and when L met him the other |
day 1 said to him:
We'll, and what are you going to |
make of yourself-rich man, poor |
man, beggar man, thief, lawyer, doc |
tor, merchant, priest?"
The lads fresh young face took on
worn, haraSSed look as he replied in
a troubled voice:
Il don't know. 1 don't even know
what I want to be. 1 have thought
and thought over it until I am half
mad and can't decide whether 1 want
to go into profession or business. I
am not lazy. I am keen to be hard
at work, but want to start right and
get into the thing 1 am fitted for, and
l seem to be one of the poor dubs who
have no talent, SO don't know which
way to turn
And then his mother lifted up her
voice in lamentation:
Jacks father and 1 are worried to
death over him. she said. I'VE don't
know what to do with him. He must
get to work at something, but what?
We don't know how to advise him.
And it is SO important that he should
make the right choice"
felt like saying to her, 1T certain
ly is important. 1t is the most impor-
tant thing that will ever happen to
Jack. This is the crucial moment of
the help and wisdom of his parents,
and you have none to offer him. You
are falling him in his direst hour of
need. Shame on you'll
You have lived in close daily asso-
citation with this boy for twenty years
You have seen him develop from
babyhood into manhood, and 1t is
disgraceful confession of criminal
carelessness that you have observed
him so casually and with SO little in
telligence that you do not even know
his tastes or his aptitudes.
1.-The most you know about him is
whether he likes roast beef or boiled
mutton, and whether he sleeps in
nightgown or pajamas. You have
never taken the trouble to find out
whether his brain is of the quality
that would fit him for some intellect
tual profession or whether II mas IN II
the uuirk that produces merchant
princes, or whether his hands tumble
or have the dizziness that makes great
craftsmen.
stupid Stupid! Stupid. Unfaith-
full parents! No wonder your children
are failures who go laundering thru
life-round pegs in square holes-al-
ways trying to do the thing nature
never intended them to do. and never
succeeding at anything. And it's all
YOUR fault You should have been
able to have given them the right
steer when they needed an older and
more experienced mariner to head
their little barks in the proper direc-
ton
But" protest the parents, our
children never displayed any especial
talent. If there had been any Ma
caulay spouting Greek when he was 3
years old, or Milton 'hspnig in num-
bers for the numbers came or any
Mozart climbing out of his cradle to
improvise sonatas on the piano, or any
incipient Edisons or Rockefellers,
why, we should have known as well
as any one how to direct them.
But in our brood there were no
infant phenomenons. They were just
ordinary, sensible, healthy, happy
children, who did just what all the
other children in the neighborhood
were doing, and exhibited no more
personal peculiarities than so many
peas in a pod. How then, could We
tell what each was best fitted to do
for a life work."
The answer is-by incessant watch
fulness, by studying the child's every
mood and tense, by noting how it
plays, what it reads, in what it finds
its chief enjoyment, by keeping it for
ever under the microscope of dispas-
sionate investigation. And the more
! commonplace the child seems, the
more important for the parent to do
| this. Not even all peas in pod are
alike or fitted for the same careers.
1t is not that the ordinary child
| does not give plenty of indications of
| it's bent, but that parents are too
| blind, and too careless and too pre-
occupied with other things to notice
them, and the child itself is too young
and too ignorant to be aware of their
| significance.
When Tommy is 10 years old he is
tinkering with tools and mending all
| A., ,oJl- 4l,1 o11
and sewing machines in the neighbour
| hood, and knows by intuition what is
| the matter with the most tempera
mental of automobiles. But that
| doesn't suggest thing to Tommy S
father. He never thinks of having
| all of Tommy's studies directed to de-
veloping Toms mechanical ability to
| the end that when he is thru school
| he will know exactly what niche in
| the world he is prepared to fill, and
go to it.
Sammy makes no brilliant record at
school, but he has outtraded every
! boy for blocks around, SO that he pos
sesses the whole visible supply of
marbles and jack knives in his COM
munity. Nobody-no grown person
takes the slightest notice of this
significant fact, or sees to it that
Sammy gets the best possible educa-
ton in a good business school; nor
does his father say to him when he
is thru school. Business is fine. son,
| come on in
When Ernest was little they called
him sissy and Miss Lizzie" because
he would rather play with his sisters
dolls and make clothes for them than
to play football with the other boys.
AS he grew older he quit that in
shame, but he's always been finicky
about colors and fabrics and has such
exquisite taste that his mother and
sister depend on him for advice about
their clothes.
But when Ernest is grown up, does
it occur to his family to suggest to
him that his talents lie in the dry
goods and millinery line? Not at all
| His parents say they really don't
know what to advise him to go into.
He has no particular bent.