Different professions require different qualities. Unless a man possesses the requisite qualification for a profession, it would be worse than useless for him to enter it. Educated youngmen find it hard to choose a suitable profession by which to earn a decent living. They are attracted by lucrative professions. They join one or the other profession without thinking whether it would suit them or not. A shopkeeper must be active tactful, wide-awake, have a strong common sense, and be calculating. A teacher, of course, must have brains and patience, but should on no account show any weakness for filthy lucre. A man of shy and retiring disposition can never succeed in a business in which energy is required. A man of restless disposition will have no chance in an occupation where patience is needed.
Choice of a profession has become a very difficult matter for youngmen in Pakistan. The choice is very much limited and out youngmen attaches imaginary dignity to certain professions. They forget that all professions are noble. They dislike manual labour and mechanical pursuits. Government service has great attraction for them because they think it carries a certain dignity and prestige. Youngmen with bright university careers have been known to enter government service as mere clerks. There is chaos everywhere. There are teachers who ought to be contractors; there are lawyers who ought to be traders; there are doctors who ought to be grocers.
In Pakistan great care is needed to train young men from the very beginning for the professions they are it for. Different men possess different faculties and none of these faculties is without use. The great fault of Pakistani parents is that unless a boy qualifies for a clerkship, or for an overseer ship or become a doctor, he is considered worthless. But, perhaps, the parents and boys are not entirely to blame in this matter. There are no openings in these lines.
