The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-03-17
M E N w 0 M E N
 A ND T HIN c s

ing along several lines. which for awhile had not given much thought, and am grateful to any person who stirs up my gray matter.
 It's frequently the case we get more help from the man with whom we dis agree while he is addressing or preaching to us, than we do from the one with whom we are in perfect accord. This is typined by the deacon's falling to sleep as soon his preacher began preach ing because of his perfect confidence that everything he would say would be thor ocghly orthodox
 But if a strange preacher enters the pulpit, about whom their is a suspicion that he is giving out dangerous doctrine, the same deacon will keep his ears open and his eyes ''skint," as he is on the watch out to find something he can raise fuss about. This same state of mind goes much further than in listening to preachers.
 Mankind owes much to the men who keep them awake and make them think, for real downright, hard thinking is what most of us prefer to sidestep, and as much as we may abuse them in pub lie, way down in our hearts we are thankful foE them for helping us to keep our gleam of intelligence from going out or becoming so dim that it fails to spark
 One of his Illuminating remarks show ing the vast difference between the east and the west was when he was not sure about a date, and simply got around it by saying, ''In India there is no sense or accuracy" My, what comforting place it must be for a reporter to work, for the one thing which is dinned into the ears of a newspaper .cub" is to be sure and get names. dates and places accur- ately
 MT. Gradgrind, Dickens man of facts and realities, would surely have a hard time" if he had been born in India, if possible. It is true that in him the great English novelist and reformer was personifying a typical John Bull, cock- sure about everything, and while really not thoroughly bad man at heart, yet blighting his children by his hard. prac- tical way in bringing them up. Little wonder that son Tom was sullen, and Louisa cold and indifferent to her father. but loving her brother dearly.
 Literalists as rule are never the happy ones, any more than peace comes by being swamped in materialism; but so far d O T n, conrarned T bod rotl,ar have my feet firmly planted on the earth than to have my head continually wrapped about with clouds I am willing for the east to be lost in speculation and find it's joy in it's .shadowy dreams, but give me something tangible that my fingers can touch and not spiritual fantasy. l
 I envy our recent Hindu guest in that he has lived in at least three great civil izations, for any one who graduated at Tokio must have caught something Of the real life of the flowery kingdom which a mere traveller misses. Certain ly man born and reared in India and schooled at Calcutta must be in closest touch with orientalism But the surprise of all to me was his grasp of our Amer ican and European modes of thought. I was greatly puzzled to know how he had caught on to the weak spots in our armor, in spite of the fact that I had read that he was graduate of one of our universities, but when I was told that he had married an American girl. I said hthats the way he got wise to so much Ethat is ordinarily hidden, not only from people from the other side of the earth, but from even our English cousins who come over and spend couple of weeks and then put in year writing book about us without ever having caught on to our Americanisms at all
 It was extremely funny and most strange to hear him on his first visit to Of "old Hamlet and of how he acc,- dentally put the old nuisance, Polonius, out of business by chance thrust. As he talked you could just see his amuse- ment at the bloodiness of our English drama where men and women are butch cred and some of the scenes are like war shambles in the way the dead are ! AodpOu up. HIS f1iAIoe now s'oCiiiSa oue7 iandish to a man who was reared in a land where animals are scared and hu- man life not so cheap as it is among the Anglo-Saxons It was sport to watch the reactions of his mind.
 
 I'll forget much that he has said on } both of his visits but the thing which will cheer me the next time I fail to get my facts right, is what he remarked about the total sense of inaccuracy" in India My, what comforting doctrine that is. It would brighten the life of many schoolboy and schoolgirl if their teachers would be less insistent about their getting right answers to their sums. spelling correctly and giving his- torical dates rightly.
 think I will be bit easier with my , two boys when they fail to como to the ) scratch with their lessons. just because os the thought which the Hindu let drop in. fertile soil in my gray matter. Now fathers and mothers. and teachers, haven't we all been just a bit too hard in dealing with those whom we have to bring upg fear we have pinned them down too closely to facts when the child i ish world is made up of dreams
 yes lnow it's treason to let down