If the teacher fail to do this, he need not seek for success in
another profession, when he has already declined to pay its price.
The choice of a profession is one of the great acts of life. It should
not be done hastily, nor without a careful examination and just
appreciation of the elements of character. A competent teacher may aid
his pupils in this respect. A mistake in occupation is a calamity to the
individual, and an injury to the public. Our school-rooms contain
artists, farmers, mathematicians, mechanics, poets, lawyers, statesmen,
orators, and warriors; but some one must do for them what Shakspeare
says the monarch of the hive has done for all his subjects--assigned
them
"Officers of sorts;
Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;
Which pillage, they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor;
Who, busied in his majesty, surveys
The singing masons, building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum,
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy, yawning drone.
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