Analyzing Character | Page 4

himself, and also the greatest benefits possible from the
labors of all, thus continually increasing production and yet avoiding
overproduction in any single line." That the main features of the system
suggested by Mr. Babson are being made the basis of the vocational
movement is one of the most hopeful signs of the times.
Dr. George W. Jacoby, the neurologist, says: "It is scarcely too much to
say that the entire future happiness of a child depends upon the
successful bringing out of its capabilities. For upon that rests the choice
of its life work. A mistake in this choice destroys all the real joy of
living--it almost means a lost life."
Consider the stone wall against which the misfit batters his head:
He uses only his second rate, his third rate, or even less effective
mental and physical equipment. He is thus handicapped at the start in
the race against those using their best. He is like an athlete with weak
legs, but powerful arms and shoulders, trying to win a foot race instead
of a hand-over-hand rope-climbing contest.
Worse than his ineptitude, however, is the waste and atrophy of his best
powers through disuse. Thus the early settlers of the Coachela Valley
fought hunger and thirst while rivers of water ran away a few feet
below the surface of the richly fertile soil.
No wonder, then, that the misfit hates his work. And yet, his hate for it
is the real tragedy of his life.
Industry, like health, is normal. All healthy children, even men, are

active. Activity means growth and development. Inactivity means
decay and death. The man who has no useful work to do sometimes
expresses himself in wrong-doing and crime, for he has to do
something industriously to live. Even our so-called "idle rich" and
leisure classes are strenuously active in their attempts to amuse
themselves.
When, therefore, a man hates his work, when he is dissatisfied and
discontented in it, when his work arouses him to destructive thoughts
and feelings, rather than constructive, there is something wrong,
something abnormal, and the abnormality is his attempt to do work for
which he is unfitted by natural aptitudes or by training.
The man who is trying to do work for which he is unfitted feels
repressed, baffled and defeated. He may not even guess his unfitness,
but he does feel its manifold effect. He lacks interest in his work and,
therefore, that most vital factor in personal efficiency--incentive. He
cannot throw himself into his work with a whole heart.
When Thomas A. Edison is bent upon realizing one of his ideas, his
absorption in his work exemplifies Emerson's dictum: "Nothing great
was ever accomplished without enthusiasm. The way of life is
wonderful--it is by abandonment." He shuts himself away from all
interruption in his laboratory; he works for hours oblivious of
everything but his idea. Even the demands of his body for food and
sleep do not rise above the threshold of consciousness.
Edison himself says that great achievement is a result, not of genius,
but of this kind of concentration in work--and, until the mediocre man
has worked as has Edison, he cannot prove the contrary. Mr. Edison has
results to prove the value of his way of working. Even our most expert
statisticians and mathematicians would find it difficult to calculate,
accurately, the amount of material wealth this one worker has added to
humanity's store. Of the unseen but higher values in culture, in
knowledge, in the spread of civilization, and in greater joy of living for
millions of people, there are even greater riches. Other men of the past
and present, in every phase of activity, have demonstrated that such an
utter abandonment to one's tasks is the keynote of efficiency and
achievement. But such abandonment is impossible to the man who is
doing work into which he cannot throw his best and greatest
powers--which claims only his poorest and weakest.

This man's very failure to achieve increases his unrest and unhappiness.
Walter Dill Scott, the psychologist, in his excellent book, "Increasing
Human Efficiency in Business," gives loyalty and concentration as two
of the important factors in human efficiency. But loyalty pre-supposes
the giving of a man's best. Concentration demands interest and
enthusiasm. These are products of a love of the work to be done.
The man employed at work for which he is unfit, therefore, finds it not
a means of self-expression, but a slow form of self-destruction. All this
wretchedness of spirit reacts directly upon the efficiency of the worker.
"A successful day is likely to be a restful one," says Professor
Scott,--"an unsuccessful day an exhausting one. The man who is greatly
interested in his work and who finds delight in overcoming the
difficulties of his calling is not likely to become