The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-05-01
Dorothy Dix Talks
BIT DOROTHY DIX
Eorid'a Highest Paid Woman Writer.
Praise and Blame.-2.

Praise and Blame.-2.
How well this plan works out il
dealing with children, 1 saw very
wildly illustrated once in the case OF
a little boy whom 1 knew. This child
was no student and hated school, and
even disliked to read. One TIME when
there were guests at dinner at his
home some discussion arose over q
point in American history. The little
boy, who had just had that period OF
history in his school lesson, was able
to Sc. the whole company right. His
gratified mother related the circum-
stance in his Nearing to two or three
friends on different occasions and
wound up by saying, You know Ben
ny is quite a historian"
Up to that time Benny had never
taken the slightest interest in history,
but believing that other people
thought he was a historian and eX-
pected him to be an authority on his
tory. set him to work, and at last he
sor of history in a famous university.
He had to make good, and he did.
To be forever harping on children's
defects simply intensifies them. To be
eternally calling attention to shy
child's shyness or to an awkward
cfild's awkwardness can have no
other effect than to make them NOR
bidly self-conscious and shyer and
more awkward still. To throw a dull
child's dizziness in it's face is to cut off
the last ray of hope by making it feel
that it is hopelessly stupid.
But a little praise, a little flattery
will give the shy and the awkward
fects, a little fostering of belief in
himself will help the dullard to make
the best of his limited ability.
And in the marital relationship, are
not husbands and wives largely re-
sponsible for the way they are
thing but find fault with his wife, if
he berates her extravaganza, and criti-
cises her cooking, and sneers at her
judgment, and makes sarcastic re-
marks about marriage in general, and
his own marriage in particular, is it
any wonder that the wife does not
think it worth while to take any trou-
BILE to please him, or to make herself
attractive to him. and that she be-
comes just as disagreeable as he rep
resents her to be?
If a man openly admires his wife,
if he praises her cooking, and holds
her up as a model of thrift and good
management, and If he boasts that
she makes her home the pleasantest
place on earth, is it not inevitable that
that wife will work herself to death
trying to be the cook and house
keeper her husband thinks her to be,
and bite her tongue off rather than
say one cross word that would spoil
the fancy picture of her temper that
he has drawn?
And if a woman is forever COM
planning that her husband is grouchy
and disagreeable to live with. that he
is cold toward her, and if she reads
him lectures every time he comes in
little late at night. who can blame
him if he justifies her structures, for
there is small temptation to come
home to a nagging wife, or to kiss
whining lips.
But if a woman is forever telling
her husband how kind and good and
generous he is TO her, and how she
thinks heaven for having vouchsafed
her such a treasure, is it not dollars
to doughnuts that he will be to her,
indeed, a matrimonial prize.
For it is oil and not sand in the
gear box that makes things go, and
the salve spreader is mightier than
the hammer.
Copyright. 1919, BY the Wheeler Syndicate
Incl