But if I should fit one of my boys out with the equipment necessary
for a blacksmith, and then he should become a preacher, I'd find the
situation embarrassing. My reputation as a prophet would certainly
decline. If I could know that this boy is looking forward to the
ministry as his life-work, the matter would be simple. I'd proceed
to fit him out with a fire-proof suit of Greek, Hebrew, and theology
and have the thing done. But even then some of my colleagues might
protest on the assumption that Greek and Hebrew are not vocational
studies. The preacher might assert that they are vocational for his
work, in which case I'd find myself in the midst of an argument. I
know a young man who is a student in a college of medicine. He is
paying his way by means of his music. He both plays and sings, and
can thus pay his bills. In the college he studies chemistry,
anatomy, and the like. I'm trying to figure out whether or not, in
his case, either his music or his chemistry is vocational.

I have been perusing the city directory to find out how many and what
vocations there are, that I may plan my course of study accordingly
when I discover what the life-work of each of my pupils is to be. If
I find that one boy expects to be an undertaker he ought to take the
dead languages, of course. If another boy expects to be a jockey he
might take these same languages with the aid of a "pony." If a girl
decides upon marriage as her vocation, I'll have her take home
economics, of course, but shall have difficulty in deciding upon her
other studies. If I omit Latin, history, and algebra, she may
reproach me later on because of these omissions. She may find that
such studies as these are essential to success in the vocation of
wife and mother. She may have a boy of her own who will invoke her
aid in his quest for the value of x, and a mother hesitates to enter
a plea of ignorance to her own child.