Evening star., 1934-07-08
Troubled in Spirit.

The Youths who have come to me
for advice this year have been puzzled
and troubled in spirit. 1 should say
that hardly one young man in ten,
40 long as he remains young, really
likes the notion of a Government
career, Instinctively he feels 1t as
little sitting, that it has the depreSS-
ing quality of routine and regimen
tation, that its main recommendation
is permanence and security. BY IN
stinct the larger number Of normal
young men prefer the competltloh
that goes with careers in private ousl-
ness, the greater element OF adVen-
ture and the chance, not possible IN
Government careers, or really striking
material success and reward.
Assuming that the choice between
private and Government jobs will re-
main in America, assuming we shall
not nearly all be regimented into Gov
ernment and quasi func-
tions-assuming that, the answer as
between taking a Government Joo or
one with private business, is largely
a matter of temperament. AS be-
tween the temperament that prefers
static security to the exciting chances
of competition, no sensible person
would say that one of those tempera-
ments is more desirable or more usefui
than the other 1t is not question
of better or worse. Some OF the most
outstanding examples of public use
fulness and private happiness in any
generation are men who have devoted
their lives to the Government service.
Whether the proportion who achieve
what President Elit of Harvard called
''the durable satiSfactions OF life
whether the proportion Is greater IN
Government or in private careers, is
question which statistics can hardly
answer. The answer is too dependent
on the intangible factor of individual
temperament.
Subject Has Public Aspect.
To the young men who have re-
Gently come to me for advice the
question was of course personal In
the aggregate, however, the subject
has a public aspect. Whether Amer
lea goes on toward the RECOMMENDATION
inherent in the new deal, or swings
DdCk W S1uD1ldSo O14 PSASOAANA ~~->
tiative, whether America clings to
individualism or goes toward collec-
tivism depends in some part on the
aggregate mood of the young folks OF
today. Some of the reflections that
came to me about this whole Held
put into words in an address I made
recently at the International Con-
vention of Rotary.
Almost as surely as human beings
are divided physically between blonds
and brunettes, and fully as surely as
they are divided by temperament be-
tween Marys and Marthas, so surely
are they divided between individualists
by nature and collectivists by nature:
between those who instinctively prize
independence and those who inStinc-
lively prefer supervision; between
those who love the open field and the
competitive game, and those who pre-
fer the walled paths of the cloister
and the security that goes with it.
The division between the sons of
Mary and the sons of Martha is fa-
miliar. Now I am not invidiously
saying that all the sons of Martha are
rugged individualists, nor that all the
sons of Mary are collectivists. I am
merely illustrating what all recognize
namely, that human beings do divide
into groups on the basis of tempera-
ment. And Americas choice between
the individualist way of life and the
collectivist way Will be determined in
part by the balance, the majority. as
between the groups having the cor
responding temperaments.
Reached High Position.
can illustrate the individualist type
Of personality by the story of one man
who is himself strongly individualist
by temperament, and who came to q
high place in America through the