now get books on the nature of, and the opportunities in, the various occupations, and one can also learn much from personal inquiry. No one should neglect to take advantage of these means of information before definitely choosing his work. Among the points about which he should inquire are the following: 1. The breadth of the field. 2. The training necessary. (a) Time required. (b) Cost of training. (c) Where and how it can be got. 3. The capital required. 4. The remuneration. 5. Opportunities for advancement. 6. Is the field overcrowded? 7. Its effect upon health. 10. Uncongenial features. Clinging to decision. The choice of a profession is, then, a serious matter, and should be made very thoughtfully. But once made, one should no longer waver, but press courageously forward and make himself fit for the work by training and persistence. There may, of course, be cases where one is justified in changing after he has launched in his vocation, but such changes are always costly, and the occasions where the loss is not at least as great as the gain are rare. When one has once made his choice he has committed himself, so that he has no longer the same freedom that he once had. To hold back and further parry after he has once cut loose the anchor is to weaken himself. He will almost certainly find uncongenial elements which he had not anticipated, but these do not necessarily indicate that he has missed his calling. Every vocation has its difficulties and discouragements, which the successful worker must courageously meet if he would make his life count. To wander from one vocation to another as soon as snags are encountered is to waste one's life. Marden says: After once choosing your occupation, never look backward; stick to it with all the tenacity you can muster. Let nothing tempt you or swerve you a hair's breadth from your aim, and you will win. Do not let the thorns which appear in every vocation, or temporary despondency or disappointment, shake your purYou will never succeed while smarting under the drudgery of your occupation, if you are constantly haunted with the idea that you could succeed better in something else. Great tenacity of purpose is the only thing that will carry you over the hard places which appear in every career to ultimate triumph. pose. Thousands of men who have been failures in life have done drudgery enough in half a dozen different occupations to have enabled them to reach great success, if their efforts had all been expended in one direction. That mechanic is a failure who starts out to build an engine, but does not quite accomplish it, and shifts into some other occupation where perhaps he will almost succeed, but stops just short of the point of proficiency in his acquisition and so fails again. The world is full of people who are almost a success. They stop just this side of success. Their courage oozes out just before they become expert. How many of us have acquisitions which remain permanently unavailable because not carried quite to the point of skill? How many people "almost know a language or two," which they can neither write nor speak; a science or two, whose elements they have not quite acquired; an art or two partially mastered, but which they can not practice with satisfaction or profit! The habit of desultoriness, which has been acquired by allowing yourself to abandon a half-finished work, more than balances any little skill gained in one vocation which might possibly be of use later. EXERCISES 1. Is the doctrine that "Every one has got a fort" exaggerated in the text? 2. If a father owns a factory or a store and has a good opening in it, should he put his son into the job? Should he give his own son any different sort of consideration from that which he gives to any one else? Why? 3. To what extent should one, in choosing his life's work, consider the effect of a vocation upon health? Upon personal development? Why? 4. Why is inclination alone not a sufficient test in choosing a vocation? 5. What is meant by a job's being "open at the top"? Is, or is not, every job thus open at the top? Can an ambitious youth afford to take one that is not? 6. How early, do you think, should one begin to consider his vocation? Why? Will this early choice be a specific one or will it only narrow the range of future choice? How? 7. Discuss the desirability and the practicability of trying out, on Saturdays and during vacations, a vocation to which you believe you are called. Cite experiences of persons of your acquaintance who have done this. 8. To what extent is the author right in saying that, in choosing a vocation which requires expensive training in preparation, one must consider his financial resources? Can one earn one's way through college as he goes? What are the advantages, and what the disadvantages, of attempting to do so? 9. What do you think of the advisability of changing one's vocation after one has once launched upon it? 10. Can one give, as an acceptable excuse for flabby work, that he is in the wrong job? Why, or why not? 11. Have you decided yet upon your own vocation? you seriously considered it? If not, why not? Have 12. What use is made of psychological tests in the army for placing men in that branch of the service for which they are best fitted? IN THE VALLEYS CHAPTER XXVII THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PERIODS OF DISCOURAGEMENT Development irregular. In our chapter on Character and Will we had occasion to emphasize the continuity of development. We said that growth had to be an unbroken progress that one is obliged to mount step by step. The application of this principle to our doctrine of strength and individuality through work, for which we have contended in our last chapters, would seem to involve that one should choose his line of work and through it grow progressively into a more complete embodiment of his ideals. But we must now make a certain qualification of that simple doctrine, for life is really more tragic than our simple formulation would indicate. The qualification we may let Professor Ames state: Gradual growth is not to be conceived as an absolutely regular movement, advancing always with the same measured increment. None of the processes of nature conform strictly to that conception. On the contrary there are in all biological growth rhythm, periodicity, epochal moments, and level planes. Even shocks and crises occur. This is true of the highest forms of human development. The intellectual and the aesthetic life, the attainment of skill in any technique of a spiritual as of a practical character involve some vibration of interest, some pulsation of attention and emotion. In our travels onward, that is, we must pass through the valleys as well as over the mountain tops; we must be content to struggle on with our view shut in by the rocks and trees and dreary hillsides as well as to get occasionally a LETTERS PER MINUTE noble and inspiring outlook from the summit of a commanding peak. Dropping metaphor, we must often work wearily on with the discouraging sense that we are making little or no progress, and only now and then experience the keen joy of rapid and evident advances. Plateaus in the formation of habits. This phenomenon of rhythmic growth has been most fully studied in the case of the formation of motor habits. Here it is found that periods of more or less rapid progress alternate with periods of apparent standstill. In typewriting, for example, Professor Bryant, Professor Book, and others found that one seems at first to be making little progress. Then suddenly the difficulties which confront one appear to break, and one is elated to find himself moving rapidly forward. But after a short period of evident progress he is again halted and, practice faithfully as he please, he seems unable to improve. But if he only continue to faithfully practice during this discouraging level in his development the difficulties will again at length break, and he will enjoy another period of rapid elevation. If we represent the progress of the learner by a graph, a typical one would run something like this: WEEKS OF PRACTICE FIG. 30. Approximate curve of practice in telegraph receiving. (From Thorndike's Educational Psychology, Briefer Course.) |