If you have brought him through safely to this momentous hour, you have done much. But is your task quite ended? Does your responsibility stop here?
That up-state father whom I have just referred to thought that it did not; and I agree with him. I believe that the father and mother yet have that one last touch to give to the character they have helped to form. I believe it is their duty to see, not that the boy has a good situation, but that he starts under a good man.
Naturally, the employer, in most cases, is a man who has met with some success in his business or his profession. He sits apart from his subordinates. However much they may use their ingenuity, it is he who shapes the policy of the business and dominates the concern. Every one about him defers to him. Everything that is done is subject to his approval. He is, in fine, the head and front of the entire establishment. There are clerks and salesmen and accountants and confidential advisers in the place, some with long experience and grey hairs, but none are as great as he, and all look up to the place he occupies as a position worthy of aspiring to.
The youth enters the employ of this man fresh from school or college. Here he gets his first insight of the career he intends to follow. If the employer is a good man, a man of high principles, all is well. But if he is a man of sharp practices, the boy is in danger. Having no other standard of comparison in business life, he may fall into the error of accepting his employer as a true type of the successful man. He has come to this place in a receptive frame of mind. Here the foundation of his chosen career is to be laid. Is it not probable that he will absorb something of the morals of his superior, even though they may not agree with the higher ideals raised in the home? When the boy first strikes out he is, after all, only a fledgling. The family nest has been feathered with love and care and kindness and protecting influences. You have told him of the outside world and you have tried to give him a clear vision. But there are some things about flying alone that only experience can teach. You cannot always extend the home atmosphere beyond the home, but you can do something akin to it. You can make it your business to see that his first glimpse into the new life reveals nothing contrary to the morals of the home.
You can see to it that his first employer is the kind of man you would be satisfied to have your son emulate.
In the selection of the boy’s calling it is admitted, of course, that the boy himself is, in a large measure, the best judge. The vocation that he inclines to most strongly is likely to be the one for which he is best fitted. I think, however, that this rule is made too elastic at times.
A young man of my acquaintance thought that the stage was his calling. The father, telling me of it in confidence, said that in his, the father’s opinion, the boy was best suited to the law, but added that he would say nothing, believing it to be a matter for the young man to decide alone. The young man had an exceptionally good memory, a fine speaking voice and the gift of oratory in a remarkable degree. He was much of a student, prepossessing in appearance and magnetic in personality.
That was ten years ago and the young man has never risen above mediocrity—and he never will. He lacked one essential to the drama—imagination. The truth is that he should have gone into the law. He saw the mistake in course of time, and told me so, but it was too late. Time had elapsed and he could not turn back.