Analyzing Character. Arthur Newcomb
PART ONE
ANALYZING CHARACTER IN VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
Analyzing Character
CHAPTER I
CAUSES OF MISFITS
"Blessed is the man who has found his work."—Carlyle.
Only the rarest kind of soul has a clear call to his vocation. Still rarer is he who, knowing his work, can create circumstances which will permit him to do it. Of the thousands of young people who have sought us for counsel, only a very small percentage have had even a vague idea of what they are fitted to do, or even what they wished to do. Strange to say, this lack of definite knowledge as to vocation holds true of those who have just graduated from college or university. Many a college graduate has said to us: "Why, I shall teach for a few years until I have fully made up my mind just what I wish to do. Then I shall take my post-graduate course in preparation for my life work." Even so late a decision as this often proves unsatisfactory.
IGNORANCE AND PURPOSELESSNESS
The causes for uncertainty as to work are many and varied. And yet all the many causes can be traced to two fundamental deficiencies in human nature which are but poorly supplied in our traditional systems of training and education. The first of these is, of course, ignorance—ignorance of self, ignorance of work, ignorance on the part of parents, teachers, and other advisors; ignorance on the part of employers. As a race, we do not know human nature; we do not know how to determine, in advance of actual, painful and costly experience, the aptitudes of any individual. We blunder a good deal even in trying to learn from experience. We do not know work; we do not know its requirements, its conditions, its opportunities, its emoluments. And so, in our ignorance, we go astray; we lead others astray. We neglect important and vital factors in human success and happiness because we do not know how important and how vital they are. Our ignorance of their importance is due to our ignorance of human nature and of work.
A second cause for our uncertainty lies in the almost universal human habit of purposelessness. Drifting, not steering, is the way of nearly all lives. It is hard mental work to plan, to consider, to study, to analyze; in short, to think. Someone has said that the average man would rather lie down and die than to take the trouble really to think. It is easier to await the knock of opportunity than to study her ways and then go out and capture her. She treads paths which may be known. She has a schedule which may be learned. She may thus be met as certainly as by appointment. Those who await her knock at the door may be far from where she passes.
We in America, especially, place altogether too high a value on our ingeniousness, our resourcefulness. We therefore put off the evil day. We say to ourselves: "There is plenty of time. I'll manage somehow or other when the time comes for action." We are rather proud of our ability to meet emergencies. So we do not plan and take precautions, that emergencies may not arise. It is too easy to drift through school and college, taking the traditional, conventional studies that others take, following the lines of least resistance, electing "snap courses," going with the crowd. It is too easy to take the attitude: "First I will get my education and develop myself, and then I will know better what I am fitted to do for a life work." And so we drift, driven by the winds of circumstance, tossed about by the waves of tradition and custom. Eventually, most men find they must be satisfied with "any port in a storm." Sailors who select a port because they are driven to it have scarcely one chance in a thousand of dropping anchor in the right one.
In our ignorance, we do not know how fatal to success and happiness is this lack of purpose. We fail to impress it upon our youth. And, when one demands chart and compass, we cannot supply them. No wonder belief in luck, fate, stars, or a meddling, unreasonable Providence is almost universal!
Ignorance and lack of definite purpose, the two prime causes of misfits, have many different ways of bungling people into the wrong job and keeping them there.
IMMATURE JUDGMENT
The first of these is immaturity of judgment on the part of young people. There is a popular fallacy that the thing which a young man or a young woman wants most to do must be the thing for which he or she is preeminently fitted. "Let him follow his bent," say some advisors, "and he will find his niche." This does not happen often. The average young man is immature. His tastes are not formed. He is undeveloped. His very best talents may have never been discovered by himself or others. It is well known to those who study children that a boy's earliest ambitions are to do something he thinks spectacular and romantic. Boys long to be cab drivers, locomotive engineers, policemen, cowboys, soldiers and aviators.
A little nephew of ours said he wanted to be a ditch-digger. Asked why, he said: "So I can wear dirty clothes, smoke a pipe, and spit tobacco juice in the street." The little fellow is really endowed with an inheritance of great natural refinement and a splendid intellect. As he grows older, his ideals will change and he will discover there is much to ditch-digging besides wearing dirty clothes, smoking a pipe, and expectorating on the public highways. He will also learn that there are things in life far more desirable than these glorious privileges. Of course, these are mere boyish exuberances, and most people do not take them seriously. On the other hand, they illustrate the unwisdom of trusting to the unguided preferences of a youthful mind. The average young man of twenty is only a little more mature than a boy of ten. He still lacks experience and balance.
Those of us who have passed the two-score mark well know how tastes change, judgments grow more mature, ideas develop, and experience softens, ripens or hardens sentiment as the years go by. It is unquestionably true that if children were given full opportunity to develop their tastes and to express themselves in various ways and then given freedom of choice of their vocations, they would choose more wisely than they do under ignorant, prejudiced, or mistaken judgments of parent or teacher. Yet the tragedy of thousands of lives shows how unscientific it is to leave the choice of vocation to the unguided instincts of an immature mind.
INFLUENCE OF ASSOCIATION
Boys and girls often choose their careers because some popular friend or associate exerts an undue influence upon them. George is going to be a doctor. Therefore Joseph decides he, too, will be a doctor. Mary looks forward to being a teacher. Mary is the very intimate chum of Josephine. Then Josephine decides, also, that she is going to be a teacher. We knew one earnest and popular young man in college who persuaded about three dozen of his associates to join him in preparation for the foreign mission field. In one class in college a fad caused several young men to lose good opportunities because they decided to take up the practice of medicine. In one high school class, several young men became railroad employees because the most popular of their number yearned to drive a locomotive. And this enterprising youth, with parental guidance and assistance, became a lawyer.
POOR JUDGMENT OF PARENTS
Parental bad judgment is one of the most frequent causes of misfits. Even when parents are sincere and try to be wise, choice of a child's life work is very difficult for them. In the first place, they either underestimate or overestimate their children. What parent, worthy of the high privilege, can be absolutely