What do you intend to do for a living?
Plenty of time to decide that, you say for yourself or for your boy.
You deceive yourself, for there is not plenty of time. You must decide
early, and educate yourself for the trade or calling you have decided to
follow.
You must have some definite aim in life. Nobody can fix one for you. You
know best what you can do, what you would like to do, and what sort of
an education you need to do it.
Things move swiftly in these modern times, and you must decide quickly,
or fall behind in the race to the life goal.
Others are treading on your heels and you must go ahead or fail out
altogether, and the procession is so large, and so closely packed that
you can not wedge your way in again without a hard struggle.
Do you want to be a farmer? Study farming, and everything that pertains
to farm work.
Perhaps you would prefer to be a doctor. Well, then you must study for a
doctor’s profession and let farming alone. If you are built for a doctor
you can be one, but you should study yourself carefully and take advice
on the subject.
You would rather be a lawyer? The same effort to be a doctor must be
made. You can not be a lawyer just because you are bright and say funny
things sometimes.
Whatever you decide to do, whether farmer, doctor, lawyer, blacksmith,
carpenter, or merchant, be one or the other and do not try to straddle
all of them.
A Jack of All Trades is master of none, and he is not wanted in this age
of specialties. Be some one thing and be that thing for all there is in
it.