keep in mind the exemplary Way by whose guidance all tasks are made plain.
(2175)
The writer, some years ago, heard an educational worker at a teachers' institute tell the story of the mother who, on going away from home for a while, called her children for a few final precautionary prohibitions. Her conference with the children ran as follows:
"Children, you are not to go up-stairs while I am away. But if you do go upstairs, you are not to go into the back room. But if you do go into the back room, you are not to play with the beans piled there. But if you should play with the beans, do not put any into your noses."
There is no need to finish the narrative for any persons who know child-life. The physician eventually succeeded in preventing the nasal cavities from becoming vegetable gardens.
The story seemed to have been made to order. But it is not at all improbable. The writer knows of kittens having been put "into the Baltimore heater," and of little pigs having been run through a windmill after thoughtful parents had enjoined upon their children not to do these things. Thus does the law operate, as any fireside will abundantly verify.—A. B. Bunn Van Ormer, "Studies in Religious Nurture."
(2176)
NEGLECT
Men were once engaged in driving a railway
tunnel under a large river. While they
were pushing the shield of the tunnel on its
submarine journey a defective steel plate
broke. All escaped except one man, who
stumbled and fell. Before he could regain
his feet the water engulfed him. It was
the defective plate that did it. Far away
somewhere, the makers of that plate failed
to do their duty, and through their failure
this man's life was lost.
(2177)
See Decay; Indifference to the Good.
NEGLECT, CONSEQUENCES OF
The cause of an epidemic of typhoid fever
among the 1,000 inhabitants of Three Oaks,
Mich., was discovered when a member of the
Board of Health climbed to the top of the
waterworks' stand-pipe and found the bodies
of several thousand young sparrows covering
the surface of the water. Immediately the
mayor gave instructions to empty the stand-pipe,
scrub and paint it.
Hundreds of sparrow nests have been built on a ledge that runs around the summit of the stand-pipe and the young birds are supposed to have fallen in while trying to fly. The cover made for the stand-pipe when it was constructed was never put on The result was twenty-one cases of typhoid in the town.
(2178)
Neglect in Church Attendance—See Church Services.
NEGLECT OF DUTY
John D. Rockefeller had for some months an expert greenhouse superintendent named Potts, who knew a good deal about greenhouse management. A recent visitor at the Rockefeller house missed Potts, and inquired for him. Then, according to The Saturday Evening Post, this conversation took place:
"Oh, Potts," said Mr. Rockefeller. "Yes,
he knew more about greenhouse plants than
any man I ever saw." "But where is he?"
"Well, he's gone. It was wonderful, his
knowledge of plants." "You must have hated
to part with him." "Yes, I did. But it had
to be. You see, he kept coming later and
later every day and going home earlier and
earlier." "Well, a man of his ability might
have been worth retaining even on short
hours." "Perhaps, perhaps. First he came
and stayed eight hours, then six, then four;
then he got down to two." But two hours
of such a man's time was worth having."
"Yes, yes," answered Mr. Rockefeller slowly.
"Of course. I hope I appreciated Potts. I
didn't object to two hours' service. But he
got so he didn't come at all—just sent his
card; then I dispensed with him."
(2179)
NEGLECT OF GENIUS
W. J. Dawson tells us in "The Makers of
English Poetry" that Burns was sick, poor
and in debt. The last letter he ever wrote
was a pathetic appeal to his cousin to lend
him ten pounds, and save him from the terrors
of a debtor's dungeon. It would not
have been much to expect from that brilliant
society of wealth and culture in Edinburgh
that some help might have been forthcoming
to soothe the dying hours of the
man it had once received with adulation.
