Analyzing Character: The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social LifeBlackford, Katherine M. H. (Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Science
Analyzing Character: The New Science of Judging Men; Misfits in Business, the Home and Social Life
Blackford, Katherine M. H. (Katherine Melvina Huntsinger)
Characters and characteristics; Success
The first class of misfits is composed of those who are too frail for
physical labor and who are not well enough educated to take their places
amongst clerical or professional workers. These unfortunates do not like
hard, manual work; they cannot do it well; they are outclassed in it. They
do not hold any position long; they are frequently unemployed; and they
are often compelled to live by their wits. As a general rule, those in
this class are well equipped intellectually by nature, and would have
responded splendidly to educative efforts if they had been given an
opportunity. People of this class lack physical courage. They shrink from
hardship and will do almost anything to escape physical suffering. It is
this lack of courage, as well as their inability to make a decent living
out of their hands and muscles, that leads them, in so many cases, to
unlawful means.
As a general rule, people of this type have considerable natural
refinement, and refinement is always expensive. They are the kind of
people of whom it is often said that they have "champagne tastes and beer
incomes." It is difficult for them to finance themselves, with any degree
of frugality or economy, upon the small and precarious income they earn at
manual labor. This is the class of people who sometimes become
counterfeiters, sneak thieves, pickpockets, forgers, gamblers, stool
pigeons, second-story workers, and petty criminals along other lines which
do not require physical courage, strength, and force. Of course, the great
majority of these misfits do not enter upon a life of crime. They are,
however, poor, often in need, sometimes pauperized, and, as a general
rule, their lives are short and miserable. There are those, also, whose
cases are not so extreme. Unfitness for manual labor results merely in
bare living, a life of comparative poverty, and general lack of success.
THE FAT MAN
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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