“Oh, yes, Professor, I found that out long ago. But on what particular point do you find me a fool to-night?”
“Don’t you know that I owe you five dollars?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why didn’t you ask for it?”
“I don’t know,” he said in a dazed sort of way, “I simply couldn’t; I came to you for it; I told you my circumstances hoping you would pay me, but I couldn’t ask you for it.”
And he could not. His case was an extreme one; but there are many in the same position. The simple fact is, he did not have financial sense enough to ask for it. I gave him his money and told him if he needed more to come to me and I would help him further, and I did; but the best thing I did for him was to instruct him in the development of financial sense, and I got him far enough along, to enable him to ask for money when due him; but it would be a hopeless task to undertake to make a financier out of such a man. I also examined his oldest boy, and finding that he had inherited his father’s weakness, I gave him and his mother special instruction for the development of financial ability. Two years later, when I visited the same city, I found him supporting his mother and the younger children from his own wages; and his mother brought her entire family to me for written examinations, and I found them well dressed and well fed; and the mother, with an expression of gratitude I shall never forget, informed me that the splendid financial energies of her son, were entirely due to the faithful performance of my instructions. And as she paid me a handsome fee for my services, and I looked upon her happy family, I felt that the gratuitous examination I had given the boy two years before had borne good fruit.
I could multiply instances to prove the existence and working of each of the various special senses of the individual, represented by the phrenological organs, but I assume that the foregoing are sufficient for the purposes of the present lecture.
It is a common mistake of parents to suppose that if a child has a special endowment of sense in any particular direction, it will manifest such strong inclinations in that direction, that these natural inclinations may be taken for a guide. Sometimes this is true, but oftener it is not the case, so that the natural inclinations of children are by no means safe guides in the choice of a profession, occupation or trade.
When the circus is in town, the natural inclination of every healthy boy is to be a clown or bareback rider, but it does not follow, that if his inclinations are gratified, it is the best course he can pursue. Some of the most magnificent talents, on the other hand, lie dormant until they are carefully called out and trained by the teacher. There are also periods in the life of every boy and girl when new faculties seem to be awakened, and for a time engage the entire attention; and the watchful parent is apt to mistake one of these periodical outbreaks for the manifestation of a talent deciding the destiny of a child. At one period of a boy’s existence he may manifest great fondness for tools and working in machinery; at another, for music; at another, for trading and merchandizing; while comparatively dormant may lie a masterly ability to grapple with the problems of philosophy and science, which in later years marks him as a genius in literature and scientific investigation.
Sometimes a talent manifests itself at an early age, but the parent does not realize its scope and value, or the full character of the child, and he is placed in an occupation far inferior to his actual merit, or the measure of his capacity.