has the child that can be utilized in a future occupation? It is not
so much a question of making full use of your child's talents as it
is of giving him an opportunity to do the kind of work in which he
will be most happy. Society at large is interested in conserving all
the different kinds of ability, but the individual child is
concerned with realizing his own ideals, with living, so far as
possible, his own life. At the same time, the evidence which we have
on the subject--not very much, to be sure--shows that there is
really a close connection between what a child likes to do and what
he can do well. It is, of course, true that one can learn to do well
what at first comes hard, and then learn to like it. But we must not
forget that strong inclinations must be carefully considered when
future work is being decided upon.

Our children are so imitative that a child with marked talents will
occasionally not reveal these in surroundings that lay emphasis on
qualities unrelated to these talents. So many a boy with high-grade
musical ability will fail to show this where music is looked down
upon as something unworthy of a man. In the same way children will
develop ideals in imitation of what goes on around them. Every child
is likely at some time in his career to look forward to money-making
as the most desirable end in life; but most normal children will
pass beyond this ideal before adolescence. If, however, the
atmosphere in which the child lives is one of money-getting, the
child without strong tendencies toward other ideals is likely to
allow this ideal to persist into adolescence and young manhood or
womanhood. In such cases the ideal becomes fixed without indicating
that the individual is "by nature" of an avaricious temperament or
materialistically inclined.