of any kind; they do not
take an interest in it and, therefore, cannot do it well. Properly
trained, men and women of this type take their place in the professions.
They are teachers, preachers, lawyers, educators, reformers, inventors,
authors, and artists. Among those of mediocre abilities we find clerks,
secretaries, accountants, salesmen, window trimmers, decorators,
advertisers, and others working along similar mental lines. When such
people are not trained and educated, they are misfits always, because they
do not have opportunities to use to their fullest extent the natural
intellectual talents with which they have been endowed.

THE MENTALLY MECHANICAL

There is a type of boy who is oftentimes thrown into the wrong vocation in
life, owing to a lack of appreciation of his true abilities on the part of
parents or teachers. This boy has a large head and small body, and is
intensely interested in machinery. He probably learns to handle tools,
after a fashion, at a very early age; spends his spare time in machine
shops; is intensely interested in locomotives and steamships, and
otherwise manifests a passion for machinery and mechanics. Oftentimes, on
account of this, he is very early apprenticed to a mechanic or is given a
job in some place where he will have an opportunity to build, operate or
repair machinery.

Some years ago we visited in a family in which there was a boy of this
type. At that time his chief interest was in locomotives. He had a toy
locomotive and took the greatest delight in operating it. Whenever he went
near a railroad station he improved every opportunity to examine carefully
the parts of a locomotive and, if possible, to induce the engineer to
take him up into the cab and show him the levers, valves and other parts
to be seen there. As soon as he was old enough, he begged his father to be
permitted to go to work in a railroad shop. Fortunately, however, his
father was too intelligent and too sensible to be misled by mere surface
indications. The boy was encouraged to finish his education. Being a
bright, capable youngster, he learned readily and rapidly. By means of
proper educational methods, giving him plenty of opportunity for the
exercise of his mechanical activities, he was induced to remain in school
until he secured an excellent college education. As he grew older his
interest in machinery did not wane. He found, however, that it was
becoming almost wholly intellectual. He lost all d