Remember that as regards the somewhat overworked word 'service' every addition in every conceivable department of human activity which is constructive of society is service; that the spirit of science is to transfer something of value from the unknown into the realm of the known, and is, therefore, identical with the spirit of literature; that the moral test of every advance is whether or not it is constructive, for whatever is constructive is moral.
I would not for a moment take advantage of the present opportunity to discourage the study of human nature and of the humanities, but for what is called the best opening for a constructive career let it be Nature.
The ground for my preference is that human nature is an exhaustible fountain of research; Homer understood it well; Solomon fathomed it; Shakespeare divined it, both normal and abnormal; the modernists have been squeezing out the last drops of abnormality.
Nature, studied since Aristotle's time, is still full to the brim; no perceptible falling of its tides is evident from any point at which it is attacked, from nebulæ to protoplasm; it is always wholesome, refreshing, and invigorating. Of the two creative literary artists of our time, Maeterlinck, jaded with human abnormality, comes back to the bee and the flowers and the 'blue bird,' with a delicious renewal of youth, while Rostand turns to the barnyard.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Life and Works of Darwin. Pop. Sci. Monthly, Apr., 1909, pp. 315-340. (Address delivered at Columbia University on the one hundredth anniversary of Darwin's birth, as the first of a series of nine lectures on "Charles Darwin and His Influence on Science.")