Analyzing Character | Page 3

training
natural-born artists to become mechanics, natural-born business men to
become musicians, and boys and girls with great aptitudes for
agriculture and horticulture to become college professors, lawyers, and
doctors. Splendid human talent, amounting in some cases to positive
genius, is worse than wasted as a result.
In our experience, covering years of careful investigation and the
examination of many thousands of individuals, we have seen so much
of the tragedy of the misfit that it seems at times almost universal. The
records of one thousand persons taken at random from our files show
that 763, or 76.3 per cent, felt that they were in the wrong vocations. Of
these 414 were thirty-five years old or older. Most of these, when
questioned as to why they had entered upon vocations for which they
had so little natural aptitude, stated that they had either drifted along
lines of least resistance or had been badly advised by parents, teachers,
or employers.
We knew a wealthy father, deaf to all pleas from his children, who
spent thousands of dollars upon what he thought was a musical
education for his daughter, including several years in Europe. The
young lady could not become a musician. The aptitude for music was
not in her. But she was unusually talented in mathematics and
appreciation of financial values, and could have made a marked success
had she been permitted to gratify her constantly reiterated desire for a

commercial career. This same father, with the same obstinacy, insisted
that his son go into business. The young man was so passionately
determined to make a career of music that he was a complete failure in
business and finally embezzled several thousand dollars from his
employer in the hope of making his escape to Europe and securing a
musical education. Here were two human lives of marked talent as
completely ruined and wasted as a well-intentioned but ignorant and
obstinate parent could accomplish that end.
A few years ago a young man was brought to us by his friends for
advice. He had been educated for the law and then inherited from his
father a considerable sum of money. Having no taste for the law and a
repugnance for anything like office work, he had never even attempted
to begin practice. Having nothing to do, he was becoming more and
more dissipated, and when we saw him first had lost confidence in
himself and was utterly discouraged. "I am useless in the world," he
told us. "There is nothing I can do." At our suggestion, he was finally
encouraged to purchase land and begin the scientific study and practice
of horticulture. The last time we saw him he was erect, ruddy,
hard-muscled, and capable looking. Best of all, his old, petulant,
dissatisfied expression was gone. In its place was the light of worthy
achievement, success, and happiness. He told us there were no finer
fruit trees anywhere than his. Such incidents as this are not rare--indeed,
they are commonplace. We could recount them from our records in
great number. But every observant reader can supply many from his
own experience.
Thousands of young men and women are encouraged, every year, to
enroll in schools where they will spend time and money preparing
themselves for professions already overcrowded and for which a large
majority of them have no natural aptitudes. A prominent physician tells
us that of the forty-eight who were graduated from medical school with
him, he considers only three safe to consult upon medical subjects.
Indeed, so great is the need and so increasingly serious is it becoming,
as our industrial and commercial life grows more complex and the
demand for conservation and efficiency more exacting, that progressive
men and women in our universities and schools and elsewhere have
undertaken a study of the vocational problem and are earnestly working
toward a solution of it in vocational bureaus, vocational schools, and

other ways, all together comprising the vocational movement.
Roger W. Babson, in his book, "The Future of the Working Classes:
Economic Facts for Employers and Wage Earners," says: "The
crowning work of an economic educational system will be vocational
guidance. One of the greatest handicaps to all classes to-day is that 90
per cent of the people have entered their present employment blindly
and by chance, irrespective of their fitness or opportunities. Of course,
the law of supply and demand is continually correcting these errors, but
this readjusting causes most of the world's disappointments and losses.
Some day the schools of the nation will be organized into a great
reporting bureau on employment opportunities and trade conditions,
directing the youths of the nation--so far as their qualifications
warrant--into lines of work which then offer the greatest opportunity.
Only by such a system will each worker receive the greatest income
possible for