The Detroit times., 1915-10-22
Be Tolerant
sY n. AppiNGToN BRUCE,
Author Of The Riddle OF Personality
Psychology and Parenthood, ETC.

The NEXT time you are tempted TO criticize or
condemn anybody. stop a moment and ask your
self whether you would not have had ideas sim
liar to theirs and have acted in similar way
II Won had been subjected to SIMILAR lNFLu-
ENCES OF ENVIRONMENT AND TRAINING.
When YOU have accepted this fundamental
truth that EVERY MAN IS WHAT HE Is
LARGELY BECAUSE OF INFLUENCES EA-
TERNAL TO HIMSELF. you viii be In posi-
ton to escape from the blighting bondage OF in
tolerance. and TO make yourself greater pow
er for good.
Intolerance. unfortunately. burdens and limits
the lives OF most OF US. In the words OF that
eminently clearminded thinker, Paul Dubois
"We constantly forget that the persons Talk
ing To us think with the heads that are upon
their own shoulders, and not with our heads
that they view things from another angie Ii
other colors.
10 we had the same temperaments, II we had
experienced the same educational. physical, In
teectual, and moral influences
I'VE may be astonished and pained TO find
them SO far from U.S. TO see them reject opinions
lluaI We consider established anu IhdIsi it-O',.
We have never the right to consider them re-
sponsible for their ignorance or 10 show them
dstain."
| Reader. consider your own case. You have
made money. let say. good deal OF money.
I Or perhaps you married or inherited fortune.
1 In any event, you are disposed TO look down on,
! to be INTOLERANT toward, those whose Dank
accounts are thin. You regard such unfortun-
ates as thriftless and Incompetent
Perhaps some OF them are. Perhaps great
many of them are. Perhaps great many others
do not think the possession OF money sucn an
ideal criterion Of life IL seems 10 you. As
suredly. at all events, YOU HAVE NO RIGHT
TO be lntolerant toward those less well OF than
! yourself.
| II you have merely married or inherited
money you may. II you choose, consider your
self lucky. But that is all. II you have earned
your money by your own exertiOns, II you have
been energetic, thrifty, enterprising-vhat
then?
Remember the parents who set you an ex-
ample OF thrift and trained you In boyhoOd TO
be energetic and enterprising. Recall the cir
Icumstances of your early life-the teachers the
friends, the discipline Of home and school, the
myriad influences that cooperated 10 develop
your character, rouse your ambition, and give
your mind wholesome set
! Recall these facts. then look into the early
histories Of acquaintances who really open
TO the charge OF lacking energy and thrift
always you will find that they have been ex-
, posed TO some decisively detrimental influences
faulty training. bad companions, physical i'll
health. other adverse factor.
| In short you are what you are, and they are
what they are, because circumstances have de.
yeloped In YOU and in them radically different
ideas and desires.
This does not mean that you or they are in
capable of being changed On the contrary
=
lanterprsing as you, the ideas OF energy, en-.
erprise, and thrift are introduced into their
minds with sufficiently compelling force.
! You yourself may play some part in their
| psychical reeducaton. But you can never do
80 IL you remain intoerant toward them
| Your intolerance will only breed In them
ienyy, suspicion, and anger. 10 IL a destructive
attitude, not CONSTRUCTIVE one.
When Chinese lady approaches n muddy
place she beckons boy The boy drops on his
hands and knees in the mud and the lady uses
him as a stenping stnne for which snrvice