On the Choice of a Profession.

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest, but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the editors of the CRIMSON:

Anyone who reads the editorials of Old Mother Advocate probably found a subject of unexpected vivacity in the editorial entitled "A Word to the Wise" in the current issue. From her stately side-saddle posture on the back of Pegasus, Mother Advocate gravely admonishes us undergraduates, and especially us Seniors, to choose a vocation immediately.

The wisdom of that advice is as profound as is our interest in the subject. (Was there ever a Freshman, for instance, not guilty of writing on "My Purpose in Life," while in English A, where his sole purpose was to avoid an E?).

The obvious objection offered in opposition to the policy of choosing a vocation early, however, is the possibility--yes, even the probability--of an erroneous or misguided judgment, followed perhaps by the disastrous consequences of failure or of mere mediocrity in after life. In the face of that rebuttal there is, nevertheless, a justification for choosing a life-work as soon as possible--a justification which the Advocate scribe might well have remarked.

The great benefit in an early determination upon his duties in his career, comes to the college student, it seems to me, not so much in the handicap it gives him in the race for the goal of success as in the advantage it brings by setting in the firmament of his hopes and aspirations a star to which he may hitch his wagon. The early choice of a profession furnishes a definite aim, a direct road, a basis for concentration.

I do not mean that, frightened into instant action by Advocate admonitions the undergraduate should go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow with a precise plan of procedure in life. The call of duty, they tell us, is not blasted into our ears at dawn on our twenty-first birthday. There was a boy who kept awake in his bed on the night before his twenty-first birthday until one minute past twelve, when, leaping from his covers, he startled the household by rushing through the dwelling and shouting at the top of his lungs: "There's a man in the house!" We shall not reach a permanent decision in a moment, or overnight. Speculation and doubt will probably ripen into mature choice only after considerable mental cultivation. But if one remains philosophically in the waters of the Pierian bath for a while, no doubt he will finally arise to cry "Eureka".

As Old Mother Advocate says, let us choose a vocation as soon as possible. Procrastination, moreover, will mean not only the loss of an early start up the ladder of success, but it will mean something worse: it will mean the loss of that tremendous stimulus of having a clear destination, a one, single aim. No matter whether the choice be butcher or baker, or candlestick-maker, it is good to determine as soon as possible upon a permanent or even upon a temporary purpose in life. The choice is not only a means; it is an end in itself. E. HOWELL FOREMAN '16.