question at all. If the boy is heir to an estate or great business, it is his duty to take the place which birth has assigned to him. And in other cases the father or mother decides for the boy what trade or profession he is to follow, and he is forced into this. But in the vast majority of cases the average boy has, within certain limits, a free choice between various possible occupations. The average boy, as we saw in Chapter VI., is fond of dallying with the thought of himself as realised in various trades and professions. He pictures himself at one time as a soldier, at another as a doctor, at another as a car-conductor, and so on. Sometimes two or three of these fancied selves, or (to put the same thing in other words) two or three of the callings that appeal to him, seem so equally desirable that a rational choice becomes almost impossible. The more similar the alternatives, the more difficult choice always is.
If the boy or young man is seriously troubled and anxious about this question, can ethics help him by suggesting any principles on which he may decide? There is no other moral matter on which advice and guidance is more frequently sought. The teacher finds that his boys are very ready to consult him on this question, and if he is conscientious he is often puzzled what advice to give, and what principles to suggest for the guidance of the boy. Does ethics have any assistance to give? There are three very general principles which ethics may lay down. They are all very obvious, but we are very apt to overlook them.
(1) The choice of vocation is a moral question. It is not a matter simply of expediency or profit. We
