THE CHOICE OF A PROFESSION.

Rev. E. E. Hale delivered a very forcible and eloquent address on the "Choice of a Profession" in Appleton Chapel last evening. Every year, Mr. Hale said, 6000 men graduate from American colleges and 1,000,000 immigrants enter this country. These 6000 men are endowed with a liberal and not merely a "bread and butter" education. They are to be leaders among the people; they must accept this fact modestly, but surely, else they should not come here to spend three or four of the most valuable years of their lives. For some men there need be no struggle to decide what profession to select; they are born with a genius for some specially, whether it be for law or art or invention. But these are few. Most of our young men have to choose that for which they seem most fit, or which lies nearest at hand. But the training for specialties is to be put off; life is too varied to permit of being all devoted to the study of one specialty. A wider range of knowledge should be entered upon and pursued until the last moment that can be spared from beginning the special training.

The chosen profession may be from thousands of duties near at hand, but it must always be a duty. The man must decide not on "what I like," but "in what will I be the most useful." Nor must any liberal profession be considered over-crowded. In every one, as Webster so well said of his own, there is room higher up. And certainly, Mr. Hale continued, we can declare within the secresy of this chapel, that there is always room for Harvard men. Skill is needed on every side - the skill that is possessed by graduates of our colleges. Probably in no age of our country's history, in education of the young, was so deserving of the title "golden" as when Webster, and Choate, and the many great men of that time devoted their time after college to the teaching of the young. Such men are needed now. As the laws of choice of a profession Mr. Hale named first to select one vocation. An avocation was also well to have and necessary, but it must be an avocation. Every man has his ideal life to lead, the object of his day dreams, and this is the answer to his question, what profession to choose, and what life to lead.