The Nagging Woman

The mistress oí a house feels that lt is her duty - none the less clear because it is disagreeable - to point out the faults of those in her charge, says the Philadelphia Ledger. Beginning with the maids and ending with her husband - or sometimes vice versa - she thinks it her mission in life to flnd and condemn imperfections. And from this attitude it is but i short step to the position of a family "nagger"- a character which destroys all peace and comfort. Business men often make a similar mistake and act upon the belief that no man does his best work unless under the constant dread of sarcastic and bitter fault-flnding. The work in general may be far above the average- but that the way to keep it so is to piek flaws in every possible weak place is the decisión of certain minds. Because a fault exists is no reason that it should be mentioned without regard to time or place, and to one open to conviction it would not be difficult to prove that there is wisdom in allowing people to make mistakes unobserved, or at any rate unrebuked; but this wisdom can only flourish in the faith that the evil of today is not a finalíty. No mother, for instance, really believee that her little daughter is necessarily to be lifelong slattern because at 12 years of age she keeps an untidy room and her boots are often seeo without the proper button, nor does she think thát a lie in the mouth of her 3-year-old boy condemns him to a future of fraud and deceit. These things must be met, of course, but if they are met by the constant inculcation of better habita and better principies the evil in itself needs little or no comment. Indeed, a word of censure withheld often is a more effective rebuke than a storm of angry fault-finding. To grow in the wisdom of this judicious silence we must flrst of all cultívate in ourselves a just perception of valúas and proportions, we must learn what to eee and what not to see, what to leave out and what to put in our mental picture3. It may be, too, that then we shall often give sympathy where others deride, or encouragement where the sternly Just wculd condemn; but we should at least relieve those around us from a very irritating insistence upon trifles.