Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1890-02-27
To Re CONTINUED.
uNHEEpED LESSONS.
a Sensible Little Lecture Addressed 10
KnaHes and Fools.

a Sensible Little Lecture Addressed TO
KnaVes and Fools.
If men and women were amenable to
the laws by which schools are gov
erned, how many thousands of us would
have to do penance in fools caps every
day! Ounces more inveterate and hope
less than the yeriest thickhesds you can
pick out of the child-world are as
plenty as blackberries" among ''chil-
dren of larger growth" Wholesome
discipline and good advice do sometimes
brighten the wits and improve the
judgments of unpromising boys and
girls; but neither the scourge of bitter
experience nor the tutelage of the wise
and good seems to produce any reforms-
tory effect upon the majority of adult
blunderers. Your burnt child avoids
the fire. but your singed man is apt to
rush back into the fame as moth or a
beetle.
The Jail, says the New York Ledger,
does not teach the thief that honesty is
the best policy; no reverse reclaims the
reckless gambler; the drunkard whom
dissipation has reduced TO his last coat
pawns it to procure more liquor; plucked
pigeons of the stock exchange only wait
to renew their feathers outside to re-
turn to Wall street and be stripped
again; publishers of papers that the
public does not want and will not read
sink fortune after fortune in vain efforts
to revolutioniZe the taste Of the million;
Missionaries with patent schemes for re-
modelling the social system on principles
at war with the laws Of nature and the
word of God sophisticate to the bitter
end in spite of the scorn and derision Of
the community; inventors whose brains
have brought forth nothing but failures
cling to their fallacies in the face of
demonstration and go on producing new
abortions; and politicians who have
been Missed down thousand times con-
tinue to 'yawp" after they have become
too contemplate to be hooted.
Such insane obstinacy, such perse-
verance in faulty, such iagitious disre-
gard of the teachings of experience are
not to be found among the urchins who
frequent our public schools. The
greatest blockhead, the worst scape-
grace among the little folk, pays some
attention to the lessons and admonitions
he is continually receiving; but fools
and knaves who have arrived at ''years
of discretion" are for the most part in
corrigible. Fortunately for those who
belong to none of these somewhat nu-
merous classes, public opinion and pub
lie justice impose wholesome restraint
upon their rank and file; but, alas! to
the great damage of the common in
terest, there are knaves and fools in
authority who appear to be beyond the
reach of law, and upon whom public re-
monstrances seem to have no more eff
feet than headless arrows upon the hide
of rhinoceros.
But let the honest and sensible por-
ton of mankind comfort itself with the
reflection that all worthless things find
at last their proper level. five can not
always 'shoot Folly as it flies" let US
remember that it's wings are of wax,
and that sooner or later it must share
the fate of Icarus; and that knavery,
though it may flourish for a season,
rarely outlives
''the vigil long
OF those who treasure up a wrong"