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Chapter XI: Choosing a Vocation · Pushing to the Front

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Chapter eleven of Pushing to the Front by Horizon Sweat Mardin. This LibriVox recording
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is in the public domain recording by Luke Sartor, Chapter eleven. Choosing a
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vocation, Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed. Be
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anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing, Sydney
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Smith. Many a man pays for his success with a slice of his constitution.
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No men struggles perpetually and victoriously against his own character. And one of
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the first principles of success in life is so to regulate our career as rather
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to turn our physical constitution and natural inclinations to good account, than to endeavor
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to counteract the one or oppose the other. He that hath a trade,
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hath an estate. Franklin, Nature fits all her children with something to do.
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Lowell. As occupations and professions have a powerful influence upon the length of
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human life. The youth should first ascertain whether the vocation he thinks of choosing
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as a healthy one. Statesmen, judges, and clergymen are noted for their
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longevity. They are not swept into the great business vortex, where the friction
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and raspings of sharp competition whit all life away at a fearful rate. Astronomers
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who contemplate vast systems moving through enormous distances are exceptionally long lived, as Herschel
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and Humboldt, philosophers, scientists and mathematicians as Galileo Bacon Newton Yulo Dalton.
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In fact, those who have dwelt upon the exact sciences seem to have escaped
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many of the ills from which humanity suffers. Great students of natural history have
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also, as a rule, lived long and happy lives. Of fourteen members
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of a noted historical society in England who died in eighteen seventy two were over
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ninety, five over eighty and two over seventy. The occupation of the mind
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has a great influence upon the health of the body. There is no employment
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so dangerous and destructive to life, but plenty of human beings can be found
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to engage in it. Of all the instances that can be given of recklessness
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of life, there is none which exceeds that of the workmen employed in what
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is called dry pointing, the grinding of needles and of table forks. The
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fine still dust which they breathe brings on a painful disease of which they are
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almost sure to die before they are forty. Yet not only are men tempted
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by higher wages to engage in this employment, but they resist to the utmost
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all contrivances devised for diminishing the danger, through fear that such things would cause
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more workmen to offer themselves and thus lower wages. Many physicians have investigated the
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effects of work in the numerous match factories in France upon the health of the
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employees, and all agree that rapid destruction of the teeth, decay on a
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crosis of the jawbone, bronchitis, and other diseases result. We will probably
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find more old men on farms than elsewhere. There are many reasons why farmers
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should live longer than the persons residing in cities or than those engaged in other
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occ patients. Aside from the purer air, the outdoor exercise, both conducive
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to a good appetite and sound sleep, which comparatively few in cities, and
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joy, they are free from the friction, harassing cares, anxieties, and
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the keen competition incident to city life. On the other hand, there are
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some great drawbacks and some enemies to longevity. Even on the farm man does
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not live by bread alone. The mind is by far the greatest factor in
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maintaining the body in a healthy condition. The social life of the city,
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the great opportunities afforded the mind for feeding upon libraries and lectures, great sermons,
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and constant association with other minds. The great variety of amusements compensate largely
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for the loss of many of the advantages of farm life. In spite of
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the great temperance and immunity from things which road whittle and rasp away life in
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the cities, farmers in many places do not live so long as scientists and
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some other professional men. There is no doubt that aspiration and success tend to
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prolong life. Prosperity tends to longevity if we do not wear life away or
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burn it out in the feverish pursuit of wealth. Thomas W. Higginson made
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a list of thirty of the most noted preachers of the last century and found
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that their average length of life was sixty nine years. Among miners in some
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sections, over six hundred out of a thousand die from consumption. In the
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prisons of Europe, where the fatal effects of bad air and filth are shown
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over sixty one percent of the deaths are from tuberculosis. In Bavarian monasteries,
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fifty percent of those who enter in good health die of consumption, and in
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the Prussian prisons it is almost the same. The effect of bad air,
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filth and bad food is shown by the fact that the death rate among these
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classes between the ages of twenty and forty is five times that of the general
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population of the same age. In New York City, over one fifth of
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all the deaths of persons over twenty are from this cause. In large cities
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in Europe, the percentage is often still greater. Of one thousand deaths from
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all causes on the average, one hundred three farmers dive pulmonary tuberculosis, one
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hundred and eight fishermen, one hundred twenty one gardeners, one hundred twenty two
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farm laborers, one hundred sixty seven grocers, two hundred nine talers, three
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hundred one dry good steelers, and four hundred and sixty one compositors nearly one
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half. According to a long series of investigations by doctors Benoisten and Lombard into
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occupations or trades where workers must inhale dust. It appears that mineral dust is
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the most detrimental to health, animal dust ranking next, and vegetable dust third.
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In choosing an occupation, cleanliness, pure air, sunlight, and freedom
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from corroding dust and poisonous gases are of the greatest importance. A man who
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would sell a year of his life for any amount of money would be considered
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insane. And yet we deliberately choose occupations and vocations which statistics and physicians tell
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us will be practically sure to cut off from five to twenty five, thirty
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or even forty years of our life, and our seemingly perfectly indifferent to our
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fate. There is danger in a calling which requires great expenditure of vitality at
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long, irregular intervals. He who is not regularly or systematically employed incurs perpetual
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risk. Of the thirty two all round athletes in a New York club not
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long ago set a physician. Three are dead of consumption, five have to
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wear trusses, four or five are lop shouldered, and three have guitar and
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partial deafness. Doctor Patton, chief surgeon at the National Soldier's Home at Dayton,
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Ohio, says that of the five thousand soldiers in that institution, fully
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eighty percent are suffering from heart disease in one form or another due to the
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forced physical exertions of the campaigns. Men's faculties and functions are so interrelated that
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whatever affects one affects or Athletes who overdevelop the muscular system do so at the
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expense of the physical, mental, and moral well being. It is a
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law of nature that the overdevelopment of any function or faculty, forcing or straining
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it, tends not only to ruin it, but also to cause injurious reactions
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on every other faculty and function. Vigorous thought must come from a fresh brain.
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We cannot expect nerve, snap, robustness and vigor, sprightliness and elasticity
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in the speech, in the book, or in the essay from an exhausted,
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jaded brain. The brain is one of the last organs of the body
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to reach maturity at about the age of twenty eight, and should never be
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overworked, especially in youth. The whole future of a man is often ruined
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by overstraining the brain. In school, brain workers cannot do good, effective
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work in one line many hours a day, and when the brain is weary
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when it begins to lose its elasticity and freshness, there will be the same
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lack of tonicity and strength in the brain product. Some men often do a
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vast amount of literary work in entirely different lines during their spare hours. Cessation
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of brain activity does not necessarily constitute brain rest, as most great thinkers know,
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the men who accomplish the most brain work sooner or later, usually later,
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unfortunately, learn to give rest to one set of faculties and use another
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as interest begins to flag and a sense of weariness comes. In this way,
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they have been enabled to astonish the world by their mental achievements, which
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is very largely a matter of skill in exercising alternate sets of faculties, allowing
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rest to sum while giving healthy exercise to others. The continual use of one
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set of faculties by an ambitious worker will soon bring him to grief. No
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set of brain cells can possibly set free more brain force in the combustion of
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thought than is stored up in them. The tired brain must have rest or
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nervous exhaustion. Brain fever, or even softening of the brain is liable to
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follow. As a rule, physical vigor is the condition of a great career.
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What would Gladstone have accomplished with a weak, puny physique. He addresses
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an audience at Corfu in Greek and another at Florence in Italian. A little
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later he converses at ease with Bismarck in German, or talks fluent French in
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Paris, or piles up argument on argument in English for hours in Parliament.
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There are families that have clutched success and kept it through generations, from the
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simple fact that a splendid physical organization handed down from one generation to another.
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All occupations that enervate, paralyze, or destroy body or soul should be avoided.
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Our manufacturing interests too often give little thought to the employed. The article
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to be made is generally the only object considered. They do not care if
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a man spends the whole of his life upon the head of a pin or
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in making a screw in a watch factory. They take no notice of the
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occupations that ruin or the phosphorus, the dust, the arsenic that destroys the
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health that shortens the lives of many workers, of the cramped condition of the
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body which creates deformity. The moment we compel those we employ to do work
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that demoralizes them or does not tend to elevate or lift them, we are
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forcing them into service worse than useless. If we induce painters to work in
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fading colors, or architects with rotten stone, or contractors to construct buildings with
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imperfect materials, we are forcing our Michelangelos to carve in snow. Ruskin says
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that the tendency of the age is to expand its genius in perishable art,
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as if it were a triumph, to burn its thoughts away in bonfires.
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Is the work you compel others to do useful to yourself and to society.
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If your employ a seamstress to make four or five or six beautiful flounces for
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your ball dress, flounces which will only clothe yourself in which you will wear
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it only one ball, you are employing your money selfishly. Do not confuse
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covetousness with benevolence, nor cheat yourself into thinking that all the finery you can
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wear is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you. It
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is what those who stand shivering on the street forming a lion to see you
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step out of your carriage. Know it to be. These fine dresses do
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not mean that so much has been put into their mouths, but that so
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much has been taken out of their mouths. Select a clean, useful,
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honorable occupation. If there is any doubt on this point, abandon it at
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once, For familiarity with a bad business will make it seem good. Choose
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a business that has expansiveness in it. Some kinds of business not even a
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J. Pierpont Morgan could make respectable. Choose an occupation which will develop you,
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which will elevate you, which will give you a chance for self improvement
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and promotion. You may not make quite so much money, but you will
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be more of a man. And manhood is above all riches, overtops all
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titles, and character is greater than any career. If possible, avoid occupations
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which compel you to work in a cramped position, or where you must work
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at night and on Sundays. Don't try to justify yourself on the ground that
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somebody must do this kind of work. Let somebody, not yourself, take
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the responsibility. Aside from the right and wrong of the thing, it is
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injurious to the health to work seven days in the week to work at night
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when nature intended you to sleep, or to sleep in the daytime when she
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intended you to work. Many a man has dwarfed his manhood, cramped his
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intellect, crushed his aspiration, blunted his finer sensibilities in some mean narrow occupation,
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just because there was money in it. Study yourself, says Longfellow,
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And most of all, note well, wherein kind Nature meant you to excel?
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Doctor Matthews says that to no other cause, perhaps is failure in life
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so frequently to be traced as to a mistaken calling. We can often find
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out by hard knocks and repeated failures what we cannot do before what we can
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do. This negative process of eliminating the doubtful chances is often the only way
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of attaining to the positive conclusion. How many men have been made ridiculous for
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life by choosing law, or medicine or theology simply because they are honorable professions.
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These men might have been respectable farmers or merchants, but are nobodies in
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such vocations. The very glory of the profession, which they thought would make
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them shining lights, simply renders more conspicuous their incapacity thousands of youths receive an
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education that fits them for a profession which they have not the means or inclination
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to follow, and that unfits them for the conditions of life to which they
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were born. Unsuccessful students with a smattering of everything are raised as much above
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their original condition as if they were successful. A large portion of Paris cabmen
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are unsuccessful students in theology and other professions, and also unfrocked priests. They
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are very bad cabmen. Tompkins forsakes his last and all for literary squabbles,
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styles himself poet, but his trade remains the same. He cobbles. Don't
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choose a profession or occupation because your father or uncle or brother is in it.
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Don't choose a business because you inherit it, or because parents or friends
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want you to follow it. Don't choose it because others have made fortunes in
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it. Don't choose it because it is considered the proper thing and a genteel
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business. The mania for a genteel occupation, for a soft job which eliminates
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drudgery, thorns, hardships, and all disagreeable things, and one which can
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be learned with very little effort ruins many a youth. When we try to
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do that for which we are unfitted, we are not working along the line
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of our strength, but of our weakness. Our will, power and enthusiasm
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become demoralized. We do half work, botched work, lose confidence in ourselves,
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and conclude there we are dancers because we cannot accomplish what others do.
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The whole tone of life is demoralized and lowered because we are out of place.
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How it shortens the road to success to make a wise choice of one's
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occupation early, to be started on the road of a proper career, while
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young, full of hope, while the animal spirits are high and enthusiasm is
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vigorous, to feel that every step we take, that every day's work we
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do, that every blow we strike helps to broaden, deepen, and enriched
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life. Those who fail are, as a rule, those who are out
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of their places. A man out of his place is but half a man.
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His very nature is perverted. He is working against his nature, rowing
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against the current. When his strength is exhausted, he will float down the
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stream. A man cannot succeed when his whole name nature is entering its perpetual
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protest against his occupation. To succeed, his vocation must have the consent of
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all his faculties. There must be in harmony with his purpose. Has a
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young man a right to choose an occupation which will only call into play his
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lower and inferior qualities as cunning deceit, letting all his nobler qualities shrivel and
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die. Has he a right to select a vocation that will develop only the
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beast within him instead of the man, which will call out the bulldog qualities,
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only the qualities which overreach and grasp, the qualities which get and never
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give, which develop longheadedness only while his higher self atrophies. The best way
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to choose an occupation is to ask yourself the question, what would my government
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do with me if it were to consider scientifically my qualifications and adaptations and place
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me to the best possible advantage for all the people. The Norwegian precept is
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a good one. Give thyself wholly to thy fellow men. They will give
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thee back soon enough. We can do the most possible for ourselves. When
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we are in a position where we can do the most possible for others,
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we are doing the most for ourselves and for others, when we are in
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a position which calls into play in the highest possible way the greatest number of
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our best faculties. In other words, we are succeeding best for ourselves when
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we are succeeding best for others. The time will come when there will be
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institutions for determining the natural bent of the boy and girl, where men of
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large experience and close observation will study the natural inclination of the youth, help
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him to find where his greatest strength lies and how to use it to the
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best advantage. Even if we take for granted, what is not true that
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every youth will sooner or later discover the line of his greatest strength, so
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that he may get his living by his strong points rather than by his weak
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ones. The discovery is often made so late in life that great success is
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practically impossible. Such institutions would help boys and girls to start in their proper
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careers early in life, and an early choice shortens the way. Can anything
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be more important to human beings than a starting life in the right direction,
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where even small effort will count for more in the race than the greatest effort,
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and a life of drudgery in the wrong direction. A man is seldom
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unsuccessful, unhappy, or vicious when he is in his place. After once
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choosing your occupation, however, never look backward. Stick to it with all
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the tenacity you can muster. Let nothing tempt you or swerve you a hair's
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breadth from your aim, and you will win. Do not let the thorns
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which appear in every vocation or temporary despondency or disappointment shake your purpose. You
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will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation if you are constantly
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haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else. Great tenacity
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of purpose is the only thing that will carry you over the hard places which
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appear in every career to ultimate triumph. This determination or fixity of purpose has
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a great moral bearing upon our success, for it leads others to feel confidence
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in us, and this is everything. It gives credit and moral support in
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a thousand ways. People always believe in a man with a fixed purpose,
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and will help him twice as quickly as one who is loosely or indifferently attached
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to his vocation, and liable at any time to make a change or to
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fail. Everybody knows that determined men are not likely to fail. They carry
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in their very pluck, grit, and determination the conviction and assurance of success.
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The world does not dictate what you shall do, but it does demand
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that you do something, and that you shall be a king in your line.
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There is no grand a sight than that of a young man or woman
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in the right place, struggling with might and main to make the most of
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the stuff at command, determined that not a faculty or power shall run to
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waste, not money, not position, but power is what we want,
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and character is greater than any occupation or profession. Do not I beseech you,
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said Garfield, be content to enter on any business that does not require
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and compel constant intellectual growth. Choose an occupation that is refining and elevating,
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an occupation that you will be proud of. An occupation that will give you
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time for self culture and self elevation. An occupation that will enlarge and expand
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your manhood and make you a better citizen, a better man. Power and
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constant growth toward a higher life are the great end of human exist instance.
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Your calling should be the great school of life, the great man developer,
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character builder that which should broaden, deepen, and round out into symmetry,
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harmony, and beauty all the God given faculties within you. But whatever you
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do, be greater than your calling. Let your manhood overtop your position,
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your wealth, your occupation, your title. A man must work hard and
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study hard to counteract the narrowing, hardening tendency of his occupation, said Goldsmith
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Burke, Born for the universe narrowed his mind, and to party gave up
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what was meant for mankind. Constant engagement in traffic and barter has no elevating
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influence, says Lyndall. The endeavor to obtain the upper hand of those with
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whom we have to deal to make good bargains, the higgling and scheming,
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and the thousand petty artifices, which, in these days of stern competition,
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are unscrupulously resorted to tend to narrow the sphere and to lessen the strength of
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the intellect, and at the same time the delicacy of the moral sense.
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Choose upward. Study the men in the vocation you think of adopting. Does
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it elevate those who follow it? Are they broad, liberal, intelligent men?
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Or have they become mere appendages of their profession, living in a rut,
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with no standing in the community and of no use to it. Don't
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think you will be the great exception and can enter a questionable vocation without becoming
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a creature of it. In spite of all your determination and willpower to the
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contrary occupation from the very law of association and habit will seize you, as
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in a vise, will mold you, shape you, fashion you, and
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stamp its inevitable impress upon you. How frequently do we see bright, open
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hearted, generous young men come out of college with high hopes and lofty aims,
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enter a doubtful vocation, and in a few years return to college commencement
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so changed that they are scarcely recognized. The once broad, noble features have
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become contracted and narrowed. The man has become grasping, avaricious, stingy,
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mean hard. Is it possible, we ask, that a few years could
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so change a magnanimous and generous youth. Go to the bottom, if you
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would get to the top, be master of your falling in all its details.
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Nothing is small which concerns your business. Thousands of men who have been
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failures in life have done drudgery enough in half a dozen different occupations to have
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enabled them to reach great success if their efforts had all been expanded in one
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direction. That mechanic is a failure who starts out to build an engine,
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but does not quite accomplish it, and shifts into some other occupation where perhaps
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he will almost succeed, but stops just short of the point of proficiency in
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his acquisition, and so fails again. The world is full of people who
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are almost a success, they stop just this side of success, their courage
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oozes out just before they become expert. How many of us have acquisitions which
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remain permanently unavailable because not carried quite to the point of skill. How many
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people almost know a language or two which they can neither write nor speak,
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a science or two whose elements they have not quite acquired, an art or
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two partially mastered, but which they cannot practice with satisfaction or profit. The
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habit of desultoriness, which has been acquired by allowing yourself to abandon a half
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finished work more than balances any little skill gained in one vocation which might possibly
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be of use later. Beware of that frequently fatal gift, versatility. Many
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a person missus being a great man by splitting into two middling ones. Universality
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is the ignis fatus, which has deluded to ruin many a promising mind.
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In attempting to gain a knowledge of half a hundred subjects, it has mastered
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none. The jack of all trades, says, one of the foremost manufacturers
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of this country had a chance in my generation. In this he has none.
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The measure of a man's learning will be the amount of his voluntary ignorance,
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said Goro. If we go into a factory where the mariner's compass is
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made, we can see the needles. Before they are magnetized, they will
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point in any direction. But when they have been applied to the magnet and
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received its peculiar power, from that moment they point to the north and are
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true to the pole ever after. So man never points steadily in any direction
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until he has been polarized by a great master purpose. Give your life,
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your energy, your enthusiasm, all to the highest work of which you are
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capable. Canon Farrar said, there is only one real failure in life possible,
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and that is not to be true to the best one knows. What
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must I do to be for ever known thy duty. Ever who does the
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best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly. Angels could do no
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more. Young, whoever can make two ears of corn two blades of grass
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to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, says Swift,
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would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country
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than the whole race of politicians put together. End of Chapter eleven, choosing
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a vocation recorded by Luke Sartor, Brisbane, Queensland,