The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-12-14
A SENSE OF PROPORTION.
We Need to Cultivate an Ability to Treat
Things According to Their Worth


Things According to Their Worth.
Who that has observed human life
has not noticed in others-and in him
self-a disposition to give to really
trifling affairs more than the small
measure of attention and concern which
hey deserve? How often do we grow
as excited, nervous. and perhaps angry,
over some unimportant mistake, over
sight, or other failure, on the part of
some person, as we would do over some
really great fault or misfortunel What
an enormous waste of human life-and
for others-comes about in just this
wayl
One clear and common result of the
failure to discern the relative inpor-
lance of things, and to act in view of it,
is that trifes, from the impor-
lance which they are permit
ted to assume in the mind at length
take on for the persons concerned per-
manent character of Importance, and
the world of petty interests and con-
Germs becomes the only world in which
the mind dwells or is capable of dwell
ing, Here is a good part of the explana-
ton of small, petty, and narrow lives
Here is danger to which we are all
subject from the necessary common
place tasks and interests whicb1aake
up for us SO large a pqrt-.anA nim-
portant tart--of the aetivitiesy ofaife.
There are vast numbers who are kept
by their circumstances under the grind
ing milestone of mere mechanical, com
monplace toll. There are also vast
multitudes who have made themselves
the slaves of the minor and petty details
of life because they have cultivated no
sense of the relative importance of life's
duties and interests, OF the two
classes, the former is the more hopeful.
Men can rise above circumstances they
can not rise above themselves Many
man whose daily work is scarcely
more than to play the part of link or
connccting-rod in some great machine,
has preserved an interest in higher
things, and has in the freedom of his
spirit refused to be the mere drudge of
his daily, commonplace task: while
many another, in easier conditions,
identifying the means of living with
the ends of life, has forfeited the posi-
bic freedom, range and dignity of life
filled with large and worthy thoughts
and interests, and has made his soul
the mere slave of the outward and
mechanical incidentals of existence.
1t is not forgotten that there is an
opposite extreme. The satirical por.
trayals in literature of women who
leave their children and homes in
squalor, while they devote themselve:
to African missions, are caricature OF
occasional reality. But this extreme
so far as it exists equally illustrates
| the need of sense of due proportion il
things. The principle under consider
alton does not, however, apply merely
to housework and farming anC
the work of the shop. The need o
rating things at their real and relativ,
value in the world of mind and morals
is quite as great. Education consists
largely in developing the powe
to do this. There are som,
minds SO constructed that every
thing which touches them seems
as it were, to stick to them. They re
member almost everything, importan
and unimportant alike Their lsnowl
edge is an unassorted tumble of mis-
cellaneous facts. One difference be
tween this order of mind and that o
the really trained man is that the lat
ter has his knowledge graded and or
ganized. What he knows stands in re
lation to certain organize principles
He has carried a sense of the relativ
Importance of facts and truths into al
his acquisitions. What the mind coul,
not retain and use he has let pass, @
has remanded it to the background
of the mind. All thoughtful, well
trained SC holars will acknowledge tina
the task of discriminating among tn
facts and ideas whichuthe world G
books presents to the students is one @
the most important and difficult in il
relation to the real usefulness of one
acquisition.
With even greater force may on
principle be urged in its bearing upo
moral and religious truths and dutie,
How easy it is to maLe'the small thing
great and to forget the really grea
things altogether! Let US not vainl
suppose that the tithing of mint, anis,
and eummin, to the neglect of tn
weightier matters of the law, was a
exclusive popularity of certain peopl
in ancient history. The tendencies i
human nature which produced III
character which we know as the Phar