Like a locomotive, he is strong on the track, but weak anywhere else.

"Like a boat on a river," says Emerson, "every boy runs against obstructions on every side but one.

On that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea." Only a Dickens can write the history of "Boy Slavery," of boys whose aspirations and longings have been silenced forever by ignorant parents; of boys persecuted as lazy, stupid, or fickle, simply because they were out of their places; of square boys forced into round holes, and oppressed because they did not fit; of boys compelled to pore over dry theological books when the voice within continually cried "Law," "Medicine," "Art," "Science," or "Business"; of boys tortured because they were not enthusiastic in employments which they loathed, and against which every fiber of their being was uttering perpetual protest.
It is often a narrow selfishness in a father which leads him to wish his son a reproduction of himself.

"You are trying to make that boy another you.

One is enough," said Emerson.