Nevertheless, the great majority still go forth into the world of affairs with small educational equipment, just when their minds are least prepared, which accounts for the old saying—“a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
So, when John Henry Jones, the hat-maker’s son, shows a disinclination to go to school his father is pretty sure to take a shot at him something like this:
“Either go to school, or go to work. You can’t lay around and loaf.”
Now there was where John’s father got off on the wrong foot. There and then he missed his chance for a real heart to heart talk and at a time when his boy, from pure lack of reasoning ability, had worked his mind into a bad state. Then was the time to have dropped his tools and straightened out the kinks in the youngster’s noggin. A little friendly counsel might easily have shown the folly of going out into the world without brain tools to work with.
As for the boy, his whole future most likely hung upon the result of an interview inside the first doorway he entered. Not possessing a proper amount of mental training his natural tendency became his sole guardian at the supreme moment of his career—the start. Surely it would be a matter of luck how he came through. His future, in a sense, was in the hands of strangers and a strange environment.
In these days people are employed to fill a certain niche. If they fill it, they are allowed to keep on filling it. There’s little chance to look up from the job—and when the day’s work ends there’s little chance to look around for another. Thus if John Henry was set to work in a menial position at the beginning he might never be regarded as eligible for a position leading toward real advancement. He came without knowledge and for lack of opportunity he gained none. Being a perfectly good sweeper and duster he remained to sweep and dust until, in despair, he tries for a job at another place.
Tweedle-dee—Tweedle-dum
“But,” you say, “the example is not trustworthy. Look at the great men who started out in a small way. They are now the bulwark of the nation.”
Perhaps true, but times have changed radically. It is the boy graduate that is being sought after now. “Big Business” is bidding for the annual graduating classes long in advance. It wants trained minds to fill brain positions—and that’s why the college man and the graduates of technical schools forge ahead so quickly. They literally run over the half-educated, untrained workers who sit and wonder at their own lack of advancement.