Reflecting the trend elsewhere in the national life, the Armed Services are equipped to give their forces the advantage of career management principles, and to assist their men to plan their professional careers. The opportunities and the job qualifications can be described. Also, somewhat more thoroughly than is done in civil life, the establishment's system of record-keeping throws a partial light on the aptitudes of the individual. The qualified man is soon known by his "spec number" or maybe two numbers. It might seem therefore that things are so well-regulated that the prospect of every man finding his niche is better than even. The fact remains that the majority of individuals spend the greater part of their lives doing something other than that which would bring out their best quality and give them the greatest satisfaction, mainly because accident, in one form or another, put them into a particular channel, and inertia kept them there. A boy builds model airplanes. His hobby being a force in his youthful years, he becomes a pilot, and then discovers to his shocked amazement that he does not have his heart in machines but in the management of men. A man who has lived his life among guns, and who enjoys the feel and the working of them, enters the service and permits himself to be made a food procurement specialist, having run that kind of business in civil life only because he had inherited it from his father. An officer assigned to a weapons detail finds it hard going. And the fact that he takes a delight in writing a good paper still does not signal to him that this is his main field and he should exploit it to the fullest! To what do these things point? In particular, to this, that despite all of the help which may be provided by outside agencies, finding the straight thoroughfare in work is mainly a problem of searching self-examination and personal decision. The impression which any other person may have of our talents and possibilities is largely formed by what we say, think and feel about ourselves. This does not require that constant introspection which is found in Cecil Forester's nervous hero, "Captain Horatio Hornblower." That man doubtless would have died of stomach ulcers before winning his second stripe. It is not a matter of, "How do I look to someone else?" but of, "What do I know about myself?" The kind of work which one likes best and does with the greatest facility, the avocational study which is pursued because it provides greater delight than an encharged responsibility, the talent which one had as a youth but was dropped because of the press of making a living, the task which looks alluring though one has lacked either the chance, or the courage, to try a hand at it--these are among the more fertile points of inquiry. Weighing it out, the service officer has an unrivaled opportunity for fruitful experiment.