LETTER XXVI. THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION.

The considerate Knight of La Mancha would not dismiss his follower and friend to the government of Barataria, without a few more last words, and without arming him for his high functions with a copious homily of counsels and admonitions. Before I leave you to the stern encounter of the painful emergencies of life, to unravel its intricacies, and settle its innumerable perplexing and difficult alternatives, I do not mean to oppress your memory with the thousand and one particular directions, to meet every imaginable occurrence with the right mode of conduct. Innumerable cases of perplexity will be continually occurring, that can only be settled by extempore judgment and prudence. I shall limit my counsels to a single one among the many questions of universal application, each one of which present a great variety of aspects and alternatives; questions of difficult solution for the young; and yet on the right disposal of which depend their character, success and happiness in life. Among the subjects to which I refer, are, the choice of a profession—decision in regard to our plans and projects—the selection of our company—the dispositions with which we should[183] regard the place assigned us in society—the deportment appropriate to gentlemen and ladies—the proper selection of books—the mode and place of worship, and what are the best evidences of true wisdom in character. The first of these is the only one upon which I shall offer you my remarks.

In the choice of a profession, the first point to be consulted is our physical and mental temperament and endowment, or aptitude. That some are constituted for sedentary and inactive pursuits, others to beat the anvil, follow the plough, or mount the reeling mast with a firm step in the uproar of a tempest; some for the bar, others for the pulpit, and still others to be musicians, painters, poets or engineers, I consider a truth so universally and obviously taught by observation and experience, that I shall not deem it necessary to pause to prove it to such as would contest it. I am sufficiently informed that there are those who contend that all minds are formed equal and alike—and that all the after differences result from education and circumstances. With them, Virgil and Byron had no constitutional aptitudes to poetry, and the same training that gave Handel and Gluck their pre?minence in music, would have imparted to any other mind equal skill. According to their system, La Place and Zerah Colburn were no earlier or more strongly inclined to mathematics, than other children. These sapient physiologists in descending to the animal tribes, ought to find, that web-footed animals had no natural aptitude for water, the canine tribes for animal food, and the ruminating, to feed on grass and vegetables. I shall leave those who hold this dogma to retain it unquestioned so far as I am concerned; and they[184] will be obliged to leave me to mine, which is, that there are immense differences in the physical and mental constitution, differences which every enlightened parent discovers in his children from the very dawn of their faculties—differences which every intelligent instructer notes in his pupils, as soon as he becomes intimately acquainted with them—differences which, to keen and close observation, distinguish more or less each individual in the immense mass of society. No matter how much alike these persons are reared and trained; the most striking diversities of endowment are often observed in members of the same family, reared and educated with all possible uniformity. This is, no doubt, a beautiful trait of that general impress of variety, which providence has marked upon every portion of the animate and inanimate creation. Nature has willed, that not only men should possess an untiring diversity of form, countenance and mind, but that not two pebbles on the shore, or insects in the air, should be found precisely alike. The sign manual of the Creator on his works is a grand and infinite variety.

The physiological inquiry whence these differences of temperament and aptitude arise, is one, which belongs to another subject; though I have no wish to conceal my belief, that the fundamental positions of phrenology are as immovably founded in fact, and as certainly follow from observation, as the leading axioms of any physical science. It is enough for my present purpose, that the order of every form of society calls for an infinite variety of aptitude, talent and vocation, and that nature has furnished the requisite variety of endowment, adequately to meet those calls.

The ancient system, still in use, goes on the supposition,[185] that all minds are originally alike; and that all children are equally fit to be trained for each of the vocations. Hence we see tailors at the anvil, and blacksmiths on the shopboard, innumerable excellent ploughmen generating prose, and sleeping at the bar and pulpit, and ingenious fiddlers ruined as engineers; in a word, all that ludicrous disarrangement and seeming play at cross purposes, in virtue of which, men, who would have been borne, by a strong current, to the first place in the profession for which nature designed them, become dull and useless in another. A great part of the whole labor of instruction has thus been worse than thrown away. It has been the hard effort of poetic fiction, laboring the huge stone up an acclivity, to see it recoil and hear it thunder back again; the effort to circumvent, and cross the purposes of nature.

It seems to me to be among the most responsible inquiries of a parent and a conscientious instructor, what pursuit or calling is indicated for his child by his temperament and aptitude? The boy, who, like Pope, even in childhood lisps in numbers, because the numbers come, will probably be found to have not only an ear for the peculiar harmony of rhythm, but an inventive mind, stored with images, and a quick eye to catch the various phases of nature and society. If placed under favorable circumstances, and judicious training, this child will become a poet, while ninety-nine in a hundred of those, who make verses, could by no forcing of nature ever rise higher than rhymers. Thus may be detected the embryo germs of temperament, endowment and character, which give the undeveloped promise of the future orator, lawyer, mathematician, naturalist, mechanician, in a word,[186] of the mind fitted to attain distinction in any walk in society. I am aware of the mistakes, which fond and doting parents are likely to make, in interpreting an equivocal, perhaps an accidental sally of the cherished child, to be a sure proof of genius and endowment. No judicious and intelligent parent will be in much danger of being led astray by fondness so weak and misguided.—Wherever real endowment exists, it never fails to put forth continual indications. It is the elastic vigor of nature working at the root, to which no foolish partiality will be blind.

It is true, that nature, equally beneficent in what she has granted, and what she has withheld, forms the million for the common duties and undistinguished employments; stamps them at once with a characteristic uniformity and variety; and sends them forth with specific adaptations, but not so strongly marked, as not to be mistaken with comparative impunity. Hence the ordinary pursuits and employments of life are conducted with general success, notwithstanding these smaller mistakes in regard to endowment.

Not so in those rarer instances, where she has seen fit to stamp the clear and strong impress of peculiar endowment and aptitude, in which the embryo poet, painter, mathematician, naturalist, and orator are indicated by such unequivocal signs, as cannot easily be overlooked, or mistaken by any competent judge. Hence, in the biography of most of those who have truly and greatly distinguished themselves, we are informed that the most ordinary people about them were perfectly aware of the harbingers of their future greatness. I am confident, that to keen and faithful observation these harbingers are[187] as palpable in the germ, as in the development. To mistake in such a case, and not only to withdraw the youthful aspirant from the career to which nature beckons him, but to force him into one, in which every effort must be rowing against the stream, is to consign him to an Egyptian bondage, a slavery of the soul, by which many a spirit of firmer mould has been broken down, and lost to society, and others worse than lost, rendered the scourge and curse of all with whom their lot was cast.

Such as have arrived at a maturity of reason and years, to have the responsibility of the choice of a profession cast upon themselves, will infer, what are my views in regard to the first element, by which they ought to be directed. It involves a previous question, for what pursuit or calling their temperament, faculties and powers best fit them? By long and close observation, pursued with a fidelity proportioned to its importance, by intent study of themselves, as called out by the changes of their health and prospects, the fluctuations of their spirits, their collisions with society, in all the contingencies that befall them, they can scarcely fail to form some conception of the peculiar cast of their powers, and the walk in life, for which their capabilities are best adapted. If they select wisely in this respect, habit and time will certainly render it the profession of their inclinations.

As soon as the mind begins to survey the professions, in regard to the honors, emolument and success, which they respectively offer, there is great danger, lest imagination, taking the place of reason, should look at the scene through a prism, and see all the chances of an illusive brilliancy[188] of promise, which sober experience will be sure to disappoint. There are the immense promises of the law, alluring a crowd of aspirants and competitors, the greater portion of whom must fail to realize their expectations. There are the honors of the physician, binding him, by the strongest of all ties, to the confidence and affection of the families that employ him. He exercises the only profession that does not depend upon the caprice of fashion, or the vibrations of transient feeling.—There is the ministry, with its time-honored claims, its peculiar title to be admitted to the privacy of affection, sickness and death, and its paramount capability of the highest forms of that only eloquence that swells and softens the heart, by coming home to men’s business and bosoms. There is the varied range, and the rapidly acquired fortunes of merchandize and commerce; the growing interest and importance of the new portico to a new order of nobility, manufactures. There is agriculture, always seen to be the most satisfactory and useful of employments, and now rapidly coming to be viewed in the light of scientific investigation and of a liberal pursuit. To adjust and settle the respective views, which the judgment and imagination will take of the chances of these various pursuits, and their contiguity to love, marriage, wealth, and distinction, will be found to be no easy task. Sometimes one view will predominate—sometimes another; and the mind appears like a pendulum vibrating between them.

Reason presents one decisive view of the subject. All these chances—all these balances of advantage and disadvantage have long since settled to their actual and natural level. If the law presents more tempting baits,[189] and more rich and glittering prizes, over-crowded competition, heart-wearing scramble, difficulty of rising above the common level, into the sun and air of distinction, are appended, as inevitable weights, in the opposing scale. The advantages and disadvantages of all the professions are adjusted by the level of society, exactly in the same way. He who is guided in this inquiry by common sense, will comprehend at a glance, that it is impossible, in the nature of things, to combine all the advantages and evade all the disadvantages of any one pursuit. No expectation more irrational and disappointing can be indulged, than to unite incompatible circumstances of happiness. The inquirer must reflect, that such a pursuit connects a series of fortunate chances; but there are the counterbalancing evils. Such another has a different series of both. It is folly to expect to form an amalgam of these immiscible elements. Reason can expect no more than that we unite in the calling, finally fixed upon, as many fortunate circumstances as possible, and avoid, as far as may be, its inconveniences and evils.

The End