Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/177

 way. His course in high school had been well balanced and was made up of mathematics, and language, and science varied enough to test his ability. He had done one thing about as well as another. It did seem, however, that he had rather unusual talents in music. The history of his family on both his father's and mother's side showed musical appreciation and technical skill. He was himself a more than ordinarily skilful pianist. It was my friend's opinion that the boy ought to study music and prepare himself to become a professional musician rather than to take scientific or technical work. I talked with him for some time to get his reactions.

"What do you want to do?" I finally asked him.

"I'd rather be a chemical engineer than anything else in the world," was his reply. "l'dI'd [sic] be willing to work my head off, if I could get a chance to study chemistry."

His point of view is the only safe guide to the solution of the problem of choosing a profession. Interest, desire, the willingness to work at a thing because one likes it—that is the test which every boy should apply to himself when he is making the choice of the work which he is to take up for life. Every business, every profession is full of men who are working because they have to do so and not because they want to do sof who drag themselves to their tasks with lagging steps and unenthusiastic spirits. The most favored positions in life are full of difficulties. Every position and every profession has its trials and its hard problems that will test the courage and try the temper of