ion 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."

Teachers are so situated that they may give wholesome advice; while
parents--and I say it with respect--are quite likely, under the
influence of an instinctive belief that their children are fitted for
any place within the range of human labor or human ambition, to make
fatal mistakes. While all pursuits and professions, if honest, are
equally honorable, the individual selection must be determined by taste,
circumstances, individual habits, and often by physical facts. It is not
for one person to do everything, but it is for each person to do at
least one thing well. As a general rule, the painter, who has spent his
youth and manhood in studying the canvas, had better not study the
stars; and the artist, who has power to bring the form of life from the
cold marble, has no right to solve problems in geometry, weigh planets,
or calculate eclipses. The proper choice of the business of life may do
much to perfect our social system, and it will certainly advance our
material prosperity. There is everywhere in our civilization mutual
dependence, and there must be mutual support. In no other way can we
advance to our destiny as becomes an enlightened people.

But all of life and education, either to pupil, teacher, or man, is not
to be found in the school-room. The common period of school-life is
sufficient only f