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Show CZZZZZZZZZZZl Tho round peg in a square holo or tho square peg in a round hole is a concrete ljcf jfc illustration to show tho impossibility of a misfit making, a success in life. Lifo i TjTllt AlG Ml f misfits, of men and women trying 4 tvt a. t M 1,1 round holes which their angular ' 11 Ol natures arc not suited to. Most of the MisitS flotsam' and jetsam of our largo cities are failures through tho early misfit process. - The misfit who fails in lifo is with us 9 By Oe.rfe Ethelbert Walsh. nlw"'8' bufc ho ccssf ul misfit is quite another creature. Ho apparently breaks f all the laws of business and professional life. IIo does not succeed, however, by wearing the square peg round to fit tho circular holo in which ho finds himself early in life, but ho wriggles out of tho holo and finds another ono more suited to his angularity. Such men, wo might say, would succeed suc-ceed anywhere, but their success,' so far as wo can see, was duo to their ability to adjust themselves to conditions that suited them. As a misfit Edison early discovered tho necessity of climbing out of successive holes which circumstances thrust him into, from newsboy to printer, and thenco to telegrapher and finally inventor. Speaking of this hd onco said: "I was climbing all tho time, but I didn't know exactly whaUmy lifo work was to be. I think sometimes the restless boy is simply sim-ply a misfit trying to find what ho is fitted for in life." But life's successful misfits are not confined to any profession or business. Take authorship. Half our successful writers wcro trained for tho law, medicino or somo business or loft to drift hopelessly on tho sea of lifo until they got their bearings through accident or effort. Tho successful misfits uro as difficult to explain as genius. They arrive ar-rive in spito of themselves, and in spite of their early false start. "You must put a genius in a holo to mako him climb high," is an old Spanish saying. It has an application that plays an important part in tho scheme of life. Who can say how much good tho early work of Benjamin Franklin at tallow-chandlering had in developing his remarkable talent l ' as an inventor, scientist, and statesman, or what lasting influence the mercantile career of James K. Polk had in training him for tho presidency? presi-dency? From thc3o examples ono can draw tho consolation that an early falso start does not necessarily spoil a career. Indeed, it seems as if it stimulated tho misfit to greater effort to work his way out of tho uncon-y uncon-y genial work. Jt is only the weak and inefficient whoso back is broken by tho uncongenial labor; tho strong will work tho harder to freo himself from tho slavery and drudgery. |