The Washington herald., 1915-10-19
Our Advantages.


Our Advantages. b..
by JOHN ID. BARRY
: This subject of intellectual and moral superi.
GRITTY is hard nut to crack Somehow, the more
one thinks about it the more perplexing it seems
! Why are the consciously good people so often
dslked? Largely, believe, because of their con-
seriousness Of their goodness and of what this con-
seriousness causes them to feel and TO think and 10
do and TO be-. "Oh, he's so good he makes me
OF man whose rectitude expressed itself in a dis
tressing rigidity of demeanor that was like phys-
ical token of the moral code.
Many needed reform has been kept back
by the people that believed in il and worked in
us behalf and even made great personal sacrifices
Why? Because their faith led to the kind of sure
ness OF self-conhdence that released and justified
some OF the meanest and the least lovable OF all
human qualities. When my wife gets il into her
head that she's got some good cause to champion
or some injured friend to fight for" | recently
heard an easy-going and humorous husband re-
mark there's sure to be trouble 1t was this
husband who, on another occasion, said; "The
misery I've suffered and the meals that have BEEN
spoiled in this family by the bad people she finds
outl can often tell when some ones been con-
victed by the expression her face as soon as
get home Lots of times l say to her. Gee ma
don't take it out on me! | didn't do anythingP
But she can't seem to understand"
No, they don't understand those zealots II
they did they would put bride on those be-
trayalS of their zeal that harm the very cause
they care for so ardently. Consider prohibition,
for example. In the past it has been associated
in the public mind with the more less we'll
founded suspicion that it betrays anti-social
spirit and desire to interfere and to control.
1t was hard for the popular imagination to glow
over prohibitionists folk with real kindness in
their natures
1t is regrettable that zeal should seem to do
60 mis- Rrt vrhe nj n Sc
matter we ought TO be careful TO discriminate. 1t
is not zeal that is at fault it is what hides behind
and seeks expression through it, the egotism that
in so many DISCUSSES is always struggling for
release and self-exploitation.
So often we let our superiorities. real or imag-
nary, make us their slaves. Let my son go to
college" says an old-fashioned father of my &C
quaintance. Never. He's conceited enough
he is" He reminded me of another father. an
old Jewish peddlcr, who once came to sec me on
a curious GRAND. He explained that he never
had any schooling to speak of in Russia, where he
had been born, and his children who went TO the
public schools in this country were getting away
from him. They treated him disrespectfully at
home. They laughed at his ways, at his talk and
at his ideas. So he wanted to know if he couldn't
go to some school perhaps at night where he
could learn to catch up with the new generation.
His appeal was pathetic and it hard to have !
to turn him away without encouragement. But {;
he was, of course, looking at the problem from
the wrong point OF view. He thought he was
at disadvantage because his children were so well
educated. The real reason was that they were so
badly educated because in the deepest sense they
were not educated at all.
little learning is dangerous thing, and so
S a great deal OF learning. Everything depends |
on the way VIC react. There people finely !
educated so richly cultivated, that they lose their
beauty, which is another way of saying that they
ion, so closely allied to sense of humor For
such loss all the acquired gifts in the world
ire inadequate compensation On the other hand,
here those who, with training and experience,
With what we like to call advantages, grow more
tumble. Clearer vision makes them see their own
comparative unimportance and gives them hui
nifty. 1t also enables them to realize how much /
here is in life that is beyond human understand 1
'anes RsS' o. A'' 1t 's"'''' 'De''' app
"The introduction of grammar put the world
Jack thousand years" says cynic who, now 4
md then, strikes a significant bit Of truth. He
meant that it gave another excuse for the yielding
o social prejudice. an excuse that would confuse
he thought Of multitudcs in regard to their rea-
ion to their kind. There are those who are less
hooked at crime than they are by an ungran9mat-
cal expression. They pride themselves on their
knowledge and their culture, which they foster in
wav that converts them into cripples They
ven boast OF their weakness as 1t 1t were virtue
An illustration of this weakness recently met
when l was talking with an actor whom had
cen a short time before playing a character-part
| really hate that part" he said. THE fellow is
o illi.erate hate speaking bad English on the
tage anyway" BY those words he passed severe
Judgment on himself as an artist. If he had been
n artis. he would have identified himself with the
haracter and he would have revellcd in the bad
English as a natural and spontaneous expression.
In life we arc all more or less like that actor
Ne pass superficial judgments that show how
ar we are from approaching the fundamental
hings the real spirit under the surface. And yet
is Our business to be artists in living. And ,
Mess VIC know our business, we cannot make q
cal success of it, we cannot make it really worth
lille. So often VIC complain of it if the fault
Az outside, the truth being that it lies in our own
lusty consciousness i,