Quarrels, upbraidings, jealousies, and spleen,
    Grow too familiar in the comic scene;
    Tinge but the language with heroic chime,
    ’Tis passion, pathos, character sublime. 
    What big round words had swell’d the pompous scene,
    A king the husband, and the wife a queen.

ANECDOTES OF THE FAIRFAX FAMILY.

Will a mind of great capacity be reduced to mediocrity by the ill choice of a profession?

Parents are interested in the metaphysical discussion, whether there really exists an inherent quality in the human intellect which imparts to the individual an aptitude for one pursuit more than for another.  What Lord Shaftesbury calls not innate, but connatural qualities of the human character, were, during the latter part of the last century, entirely rejected; but of late there appears a tendency to return to the notion which is consecrated by antiquity.  Experience will often correct modern hypothesis.  The term “predisposition” may be objectionable, as are all terms which pretend to describe the occult operations of Nature—­and at present we have no other.

Our children pass through the same public education, while they are receiving little or none for their individual dispositions, should they have sufficient strength of character to indicate any.  The great secret of education is to develope the faculties of the individual; for it may happen that his real talent may lie hidden and buried under his education.  A profession is usually adventitious, made by chance views, or by family arrangements.  Should a choice be submitted to the youth himself, he will often mistake slight and transient tastes for permanent dispositions.  A decided character, however, we may often observe, is repugnant to a particular pursuit, delighting in another; talents, languid and vacillating in one profession, we might find vigorous and settled in another; an indifferent lawyer might become an admirable architect!  At present all our human bullion is sent to be melted down in an university, to come out, as if thrown into a burning mould, a bright physician, a bright lawyer, a bright divine—­in other words, to adapt themselves for a profession preconcerted by their parents.  By this means we may secure a titular profession for our son, but the true genius of the avocation in the bent of the mind, as a man of great original powers called it, is too often absent!  Instead of finding fit offices for fit men, we are perpetually discovering, on the stage of society, actors out of character!  Our most popular writer has happily described this error.

“A laughing philosopher, the Democritus of our day, once compared human life to a table pierced with a number of holes, each of which has a pin made exactly to fit it, but which pins being stuck in hastily, and without selection, chance leads inevitably to the most awkward mistakes.  For how often do we see,” the orator pathetically concluded,—­“how often, I say, do we see the round man stuck into the three-cornered hole!”