Evening star., 1936-03-30
1ale Guest Offers Restrained Comment for Womans Page
Afflicted
Child Need
NotDespair
Success in Life Posi-
BILE in Spite of
Handicap.
BY ANGELO PATRI.


MATURE was not wholly kind to
Ireue. She marked her face with
q scarlet patch so bright and so
prominently placed as to attract i'm
mediate and wondering attention. She
had made her short and square Of
figure and with features to match that
squareness. An uglier duckling would
be hard to find in days march.
But nature never creates anything.
certainly no child, without putting at
least one touch of imperishable beauty
upon it, and Irene has hers. She has
lovely mind, graced by quick and
colorful imagination. She can create
a world of her own when the big
world Of people and their concerns
grows too lonely for her. But she Is
sensitive and lonely and, try as she
may, the suffering gets the better of
her at times and she cries alone in
her room. In another room her
mother cries, too.
There Is no easy solution for the
problems that such children face. The
more fortunate childreu who, never
having had to suffer such indignitieS
as confront those who are marked as
ones apart, are cruel without knowing
it. They laugh at these children.
They pin nicknames on them, leave
them out of the games and shun
them, avoiding the little intimacies
that make childhood so sweet.
Some defense there must be for
such suffering children and unless
some wise friend comes to the rescue
and helps them adjust themselves,
shows them how to overcome the
worst of their handicaps, they are
likely to put on the armor of the
hedgehog and stand ready to thrust
their sharp-looked spines into any and
all who touch them. They sharpen
their tongues, they put edges on their
words, they school themselves to give
cruelty for cruelty. Life becomes
bitter battle for such unhappy children.
There are ways out. The under
standing mother and teacher can find
the strong points, the hidden powers,
perhaps gift, and cultivate that grace
| in the child until it overshadows the
outward appearance or balances the
defeat II the child is like Irene,
healthy in every way, but markedly
unattractive, teach her to take the
whole thing as matter of course and
forget it. There have been homely
people in this world before she arrived,
and there will be others after her.
They have been successful and happy
in spite Of their handicaps, and will be
so in time to come. Each generation
has its quota of such people, and they
are not thrown into the waste heap.
Just think of all the successful men
and women who overcame great hand
leaps and won their way to the haSs
of fame! It is not necessary to be
homely or afflicted to be a success,
but neither is it necessary to be fall
ure because one is handicapped.
Disregard any handicap that is light
enough to be disregarded. A lame foot,
crippled arm, halting speech, poor
vision, ill-assorted features are not
sentences of doom. They must be &C
cepted to some degree and disregarded
to greater one.
| There lived, not so many years ago,
in New York City, young man whose
appearance was marred by deformities.
His entrance always caused a gasp in
any group which was not prepared for
it. He smiled and began to talk and
his audience leaned toward him as
flowers toward the sunshine and the
gentle rains. When he died, all too
soon. thousands of us mourned his
passing.
A noble mind has been housed in
deformed body again and again, and
has triumphed over the seemingly i'm
possible. Consider this and then do
what you can to help all such children
who enter your life.
(Copyright 1850