The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1882-12-09
Original grtitles.
DUTY AND PRIVILEGE.
WRITTEN FOR THE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION.


WRITTEN FOR THE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION.
People seem to have very mixed ideas of
duty and privilege-teachers especially.
In the first place, we seem to think there
are more duties than privileges; in the sec
ond place, that it is harder to discharge the
former than to enjoy the latter; and in the
third place, that these are quite opposite,
if not contrary, things. Each of these
proposition is false. There are hundred
things to enjoy where there is one to do
1t is difficult to enjoy our privileges, be-
cause they are not always perceived to be
privileges; and most of us have accustomed
ourselves to pull in the harness of duty
We have contracted the habit of making
ourselves do what we ought to do. We
feel as if there were something glorious in
that. We praise ourselves and others, and
expect ourselves to be praised for doing
duty. We are all the while magnifying
duty. All true heroism seems to consist in
doing duty. And that is right. But we
do not accustom ourselves to enjoy our
privileges, and that is very wrong. We do
not blame man if he permit proper en-
joyment. We do not blame him if he omit
a manifest duty. More than all that, so
far from being antagonistic, we cannot long
study either one or the other without COM
ing to perceive that there is no duty incum-
bent upon man which is really not privi-
lege, and there is no enjoyment possible
to man which it is not his duty in some
sense to possess. We forget that all ex-
istence is the gift of our Heavenly Father,
If we could but always remember that, how
it would change the color of our entire hfes
we should cease to drag ourselves to the
discharge of our duty We should cease
to regard life as hardship because it has
its duties LAURETTE,
Franklin, November 22, 1882.
SELF CoNTRoL-For some people pas
sion and emotion are never checked, but
allowed to burst out in blaze whenever
they come. Others suppress them by main
force, and preserve callous exterior when
there are raging fires within. Others are
never excited over anything. Some gov
ern themselves on some subjects, but not
on others. Very much can be done by
culture to give the will control over the
feelings. One of the very best means of
culture is the persistent Withdrawing of the
mind from the subject which produces the
emotion, and concentrating it elsewhere.
The man or woman who persistently per-
mits the mind to dwell on disagreeable
themes only spites him or herself. Children,
&c houn loco oalf onnfrol and
parents and teachers must help them to
turn their attention from that which ex-
cites them to something else; but adults,
when they act like children, ought to be
ashamed of themselves The value of self
control as a hygienic agent is very great
1t prevents the great waste of vitality in
feeling, emotion and passion. 1t helps 10
give one mastery over pain and distress,
rather than it mastery over us. l..
BORROWING TROUBLE believe it
was Sydney Smith who recommended tax
ing "short views as safeguard against
needless worry; and one far wiser than be
had said "Take, therefore, no thougl yted
the morrow, for the morrow shall =
thought for the things of itself. Suficie>
unto the day is the evil thereof"
There are no troubles that wear upon the
temper and sap the foundations Of all peace
and comfort as do borrowed troubles; be-
cause there is no provision made In the dl-
vine economy for help to bear them. We
have no promise that strength will be given
to sustain us under the weight of an i'm
aginary burden. Real trials, bravely and
patiently borne, are moral tonics, strength
ening and purifying in their influence,
lifting the soul to higher levels and broader
outlooks. But it is only receiving them as
they come, one day at time, and taking
no thought for those of the morrow, that
will yield us the full measure of good with
which they are fraught l..
A MATHEMATICAL BRAIN MAsHER.-
The following is taken from wester paper:
AN apple dealer employed two boys to
sell apples.
The dealer gave Joe thirty apples, in
structing him to sell them at the rate of 2
for one cent.
To Jim he also gave thirty apples, and
told him to sell them at the rate of three
for one cent, as his apples were inferior. 4.
Joe sold out and turned in as proceeds
of sales the sum of fifteen cents.
Jim also sold out and turned in ten
cents, making total Of twenty-five cents.
The following day Joe was sick, so the
dealer gave Jim sixty apples (the same
amount taken out by both the previous
day, and told him to sell them at the same
rate as they did the day previous.
Jim reasoned that if the day previous
Joe had sold two for one cent, and he three
for one cent, they together sold at the rate
of five apples for two cents, and sold out at
that rate. He returned to his employer
and turned in twenty-four cents as the pro-
ceeds from the sale of the sixty apples
Then the apple dealer few into rage, and
accused Jim of swindling him out of a cent
called him an enbezzler and an unfaith-
full servant, and '6red him out Jim,
however, maintains that it was a fair and
square transaction-that everything was
correct each day. Butwhat became of the
cent?
Let us hear from the mathematicians.
LAURETTE.
Men Who Wear Bracelets.
The wearing Of bracelets by men as well