History will afford ample illustration of this.  From it we may easily infer the duty of parental interposition.  The Athenians expressed their sense of this duty in the enactment of a law that, if parents did not qualify their children for securing a livelihood by having them learn some occupation, the child was not bound to make provision for the parent when old and necessitous.

In the selection of an occupation for his children, the parent should consult their taste and talents and circumstances, and choose for them a pursuit adapted to these.  If his child is better suited for a mechanical pursuit, he should direct his attention to it, and educate him for it.  And thus in all respects he should obey the great law of correspondence between the taste and capacity of the child, and the occupation to be chosen for him.

The violation of this law does great injury to the child and to society, inasmuch as it prevents his success and contentment, and floods the state with quacks and humbuggery.  The parent should never compel the child to learn a trade or profession which he dislikes, and for which he shows no talents.  Many parents, through a false pride, force their children into a profession for which they have neither inclination nor capacity.  While the parent has a right to interfere in the choice of a pursuit, his interference should not be arbitrary, neither should it run counter to the will of the child unless for special moral and religious reasons, or on account of inability to gratify him.  However, this is often done.  Even though they acknowledge their unfitness for a profession, yet their misguided pride prompts them to drag their children into a calling which in after life they disgrace.

Some parents, on the other hand, through a penurious spirit, refuse to aid their sons in their preparation for a profession for which their talents eminently qualify them.  They refuse to educate their sons for the ministry because it is not a lucrative calling, though they give evidence of both mental and moral adaptation for that holy office.  Others, through a blind zeal and a false pride, force their sons into this sacred calling.  Mistaken parents! rather let your children break stone upon the road, or dig in the earth, yea, rather let them beg their bread, than thrust them into an occupation to which God has not called them, and for which they have neither inclination nor talents, and in which they would, perhaps, not only ruin their own souls, but contribute to the damnation of others.  “There are diversities of gifts and of operations.”  All are not called nor fitted for the ministry.  Children soon give indications of specific talents and suitableness for a calling in life.  We should critically observe their early propensities.  These will indicate their peculiar talents.  Unfit for and disliking an occupation, they will become unsettled, and dissatisfied, and at best will be but mimics and quacks.  Their business will make them sullen slaves.  It is because of parental disobedience to this law of adaptation that we have so much humbuggery in the world at the present day.  Study, therefore, the infantile predilections of your children to particular employments.  These will be an index to their providential calling, and should govern your choice for them.