Talks to Young Men. IX: Choosing a Vocation

TALKS TO YOUNG MEN.

IX.— CHOOSING A VOCATION.

Ad; act in the living present! Heart within and God overhead. —Longfellow. Young men are always asking themselves the questions, What" shall I do? What am I good for? There is scarcely anything they would not do to find out definitely what calling in life they are best adapted for, what pursuit they ought to follow. The dif- ficulty, am inclined to believe, is not nearly so great as they im- I

agine; and a good deal of valuable time and thought is wasted hy most young men in finding out what they are good for. I want to point out, therefore a few things that it would be well to keep in mind while you are looking for a vocation. One or two things, however, you must take for granted as certain, ©n their face. One is that you will have to do something- The world owes no one a living. If you would live, you must work.- There is no premium on idleness; it is rather on work. The stamp of approval is on the man who works, the brand of shame on the idler. He that will not work, says the Apostle, neither shall he eat. The only road to growth, physical, intellectual, spiritual, is- work. The first lesson, therefore, which a young man must learn, and which he must never forget, is, that if he would amount to anything in the world, he must toil hard and persistently. The other thing he must take for granted is, that no one cant hope to do everything; though every one may hope to do some- thing. The time is past for the "jack of all trades;" the day for "What can you do?" asked a college the skilled specialist is here. president not long ago of a man who had applied to him for a

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;position as teacher. "Almost anything," was the answer. And I need scarcely add that the young man was not engaged. We en- ter too deeply into the heart of things now-a-days for the mere skimmer to be of much use to the world. Division of labor has been pushed into every department of human life, and he only suc- ceeds who makes up his mind to do some one thing, and do it well. But — and here is an important and inspiring thought if no man — may succeed equally well in several callings, it is certain, at least, that there is a chance for him to do well in some one. Every per- son can do something, if he tries hard, which no one else can do so effectively. It is said of one man that the only thing he could do was to balance two straws on the end of his nose; but he did that better than any one else could: and this was a great triumph. Still, there is the problem which you must solve: What am I

good for? The first answer that you are likely to get is, that you are good for nothing. You may be told that you have no talent, that you could not succeed in anything, and that you are fit for nothing but to hew wood and to draw water for your betters. Don't believe a word of it. It is a suggestion from the devil, no

matter who says it, and is false. You are good for something, and if you would do anything, you must believe that you can do it. Nay more, you must believe that you can do it better than any one else. Depend upon it, there is nothing useless in God's world. Having made up your mind that you must and can do something, though you will not be able to do everything, you are on the high road. Two or three things, however, you must keep in mind, from now on. In first place, see to it that you have some higher the motive than mere gain in choosing an occupation. Show, popularity, wealth, more often than not, divert the energies ©f young men in their choice of a calling. The brass buttons of the street car con- ductor strike the eye of the school boy; but houses and lands, pomp and display, fine clothes, and money to jingle in the pockets, allure too many young men. That is why some doctors, lawyers and college professors would be in a more suitable vocation weed- ing the garden and raising potatoes; and also why there are "mute, inglorious Miltons" and "guiltless Cromwells" in many a country

churchyard. Not all the gems have been picked out of the dark ocean caves since Gray wrote the "Elegy;" nor have all the flowers blushing on the desert ceased to grow there. Be sure, therefore, that your heart and conscience, unreserved is in your work. It is not abso-

lutely needful that you live, but it is needful that you live honor- ably. If you cannot find what you want, don't sit down and mope about it; take the next best —but do sopaething. Then, don't be always "looking over the edge of your work wanting your play to begin," don't even take a peep, at least while y ou are working, at the thing you intend doing after a while. Do now whatever you have to do. Put your whole heart into it, if it is honorable; and if it isn't, you get contaminated. quit before "Love furthers knowledge," but it also furthers skill and useful- ness. If you're a bookkeeper, don't jump from your stool at quit-

ting time, like a tiger springing from the thicket; if you're a hod- carrier, don't leave the brick in the air when the whistle blows. Otherwise, you will always remain a bookkeeper or a hod carrier, whereas, you might be the manager or head mason. (Don't think, now, that I am talking of bookkeepers and brick layers; I'm speak- ing only about growth.) The thing needful here is to do the work well. You can't do this well while your eye is on that. Boy! car- ry that bucket of water without spilling it; weed the garden clean if you weed it at all; do your errand well, put all your intelli- gence and discretion into what you are doing now. Moreover, don't be ashamed of your work, and think it would be more honor- able to you to be doing something else. You must have a pride in your own work, and in learning to do it well, and not be always saying, "There's this and there's that, if I had this or that to do, I might make something of it." No matter what a man is he isn't — worth his salt, if he doesn't do well in whatever he undertakes. No doubt you have been wondering all along when I would tell you what you are to choose as a calling, and especially how.

The fact is, I don't think it matters much what you do. The whole point is how you do it. Of course, there must be something in adaptability. Some people doubtless can do this, others that. But I doubt whether there is as much in individual talent as the world would have us believe. My opinion is that Shakespeare had some- thing about him that would have made him great in any other than

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the Elizabethan age, or in any other calling than the drama. And so with Napoleon, Washington, Franklin and Lincoln, Milton and Tennyson, Mozart and Wagner, Edison and Morse. They did their work well —better than others —they tried to do it better. And so it goes. As a general rule, anyone can do anything he wants to do. Better dig one acre than scratch one hundred and sixty. Better raise chickens and succeed, than have a farm and fail.

Bye and bye, young men, if you will have done your work well, by which I mean put all your best energies into it, men will look around for you. You will have made a reputation. The day may be long in coming, but it will surely come, and when it does» it will be well worth your while.

I notice that in those great universities of the East, the pres- idents, when they had need of a professor, looked around for a man; and it did not matter much what department of work he had been studying. If, for instance, a teacher of mathematics

were needed, and a man who had been working along the line of languages were chosen, no one thought anything about it. They argued that if he had done his language well, he would do his mathematics well. The students were required to do a large amount of careful, minute research work; and if they manifested ability in any one study, it was probable that their training in that particu- lar branch would enable them to conduct a course in a different de- partment with equal care and scholarship. And so it will be with you. People won't care much whether you've been doing this or that; they will ask only how you have been doing it; and they will ireason that if you've done that well, you will do this well. Do your work, then, so well now — this very task you are about

now —that when a person of reliability and workmanship is wanted

every eye will instinctively turn towards you. Never mind the fu- ture: take care of the present, and all will be well.