A right occupation means simply that the
aptitudes of a person are in adequate play, working with the
minimum of friction and the maximum of satisfaction. With
reference to other members of a community, this adequacy of
action signifies, of course, that they are getting the best
service the person can render. It is generally believed, for
example, that slave labor was ultimately wasteful even from the
purely economic point of view -- that there was not sufficient
stimulus to direct the energies of slaves, and that there was
consequent wastage. Moreover, since slaves were confined to
certain prescribed callings, much talent must have remained
unavailable to the community, and hence there was a dead loss.
Slavery only illustrates on an obvious scale what happens in some
degree whenever an individual does not find himself in his work.
And he cannot completely find himself when vocations are looked
upon with contempt, and a conventional ideal of a culture which
is essentially the same for all is maintained. Plato (ante, p.
88) laid down the fundamental principle of a philosophy of
education when he asserted that it was the business of education
to discover what each person is good for, and to train him to
mastery of that mode of excellence, because such development
would also secure the fulfillment of social needs in the most
harmonious way. His error was not in qualitative principle, but
in his limited conception of the scope of vocations socially
needed; a limitation of vision which reacted to obscure his
perception of the infinite variety of capacities found in
different individuals.
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