Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1892 — Not That Knd. [ARTICLE]

Not That Knd.

That a poor workman quarrels with his tools has passed into a proverb. It is not often that the lesson of the saying is so pointedly enforced as it was in a New York art school. The gentleman at the head of this school never failed to rebuke the tendency to lay the blame in the wrong place whenever it showed itself among his pupils. One of the students, who had considerable talent but very little application, found frequent refuge in this excuse, and the teacher was at last at the end of his patience. “I couldn’t get the point of my pencil right,” the student said one day, in excuse for a faulty line. “Mr. Blank,” the teacher replied with emphasis, “you have been in this school two years. You have the natural ability to do the best work, whereas you really do the worst. If in two years you have not been able to discover that the trouble is not at the pointed end of your pencil, I think you may as well give the whole thing up.” “What do you mean?” the student stammered, taken aback. “You know what I mean. The difficulty is not at that end of the pencil, but at the other. It is not the point but the pointer that needs correcting.”—Youth’s Companion.