The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the SouthwestSparks, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest
Sparks, W. H. (William Henry)
Georgia -- History -- 1775-1865; Southwest, Old -- History; United States -- Biography
Man's curse is to labor. This labor must of necessity be divided to
subserve the wants of society--and common sense would teach that each
should be educated as best to enable him to perform that labor which
may fall to his lot in life. But who shall determine this lot? Every
day's experience teaches the observant and thinking man that no one
individual is uselessly born. To deny this proposition would be to call
in question the wisdom and goodness of the Creator. Every one possesses
proclivities for some one avocation, and should be educated for its
pursuit. This is manifested in very early life; in some much more
palpably than in others. This is always the case when the aptitude is
decisive. In such cases this idiosyncrasy will triumph over every
adverse circumstance, educational or otherwise; but in the less
palpable, it will not; and the design of nature may, and indeed
constantly is, disappointed, and improper education and improper
pursuits given. In these pursuits or callings, the person thus
improperly placed there never succeeds as he would had his bent or
mental inclination been observed, and his education directed to it, and
he given to its pursuit. Such persons labor through life painfully;
they have no taste or inclination for the profession, business, or
trade in which they are engaged; its pursuit is an irksome, thankless
labor; while he who has fallen into nature's design, and is working
where his inclinations lead, labors happily, because he labors
naturally. These inclinations the parent or guardian should observe;
and when manifested, should direct the education for the calling nature
has designed. Idiosyncrasies are transmissible or inherited. In old and
populous communities, where every pursuit or profession is full, the
father generally teaches his own to his son or sons. Where this has
extended through three or four generations, the proclivity is generally
strongly marked, and in very early childhood made manifest. Thus, in
the third or fourth generation, where all have been blacksmiths, the
child will be born with the muscles of the right arm more developed
than those of the left, and the first plaything he demands is a hammer.
So, where a family have been traders, will the offspring naturally
discover an aptness for bargaining and commerce. This is illustrated in
the instincts of the Jews, a people of extraordinary brain and
wonderful tenacity of purpose. Five thousand years since, a small
fragment of the Semitic race, residing in Mesopotamia between the
waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris, consisting of two families,
came into the land of Canaan, in Asia Minor; from them have descended
the people known as Jews. The country over which they spread, and which
is known as Judea, is not more than four hundred miles long by two
hundred and fifty in breadth, situated between two populous and
powerful empires, the Assyrian and Egyptian, who, waging war too
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