Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1918 — HAVE APPETITE FOR PRAISE [ARTICLE]

HAVE APPETITE FOR PRAISE

Everybody Craves Words of Approyal and Comment—Effect of (he Timsly Kind Attention. It is a human frailty to want praise. ing notice of others. “There is none like to me,” says the cub in the pride of his earliest kill. “But the jungle is ‘large, and the cub he is small; let him think and be stilt” Children brought up in school can generally be told from those who have been trained solitarily, says a writer in the Philadelphia Ledger, for the children thrown much withother'Children are less likely to develop arrogance, selfishness and conceit. They do not find their schoolmates In a frame of mind to put them on a pedestal or crown their brows with laurel. They are not regarded as Httle tin gods on wheels; they are lost to sight in the ghuffle of the classroom and the playground. Nobody defers to their opinions; nobody minds when they stamp the foot and shout angrily. Children of a larger growth often crave an admiration which they do not get. They think to draw an audience by harping on the, theme of self, and they find that the audience for that kind of recital is likely to be limited to the performer. To knock the “I” out of one’s conversation is not necessarily to make it interesting. -Ijlany times a narrative loses greatly in pith and pungency by the Impersonality in which it is couched. A story of adventure greatly gains by the sense of the first-hand participation of the narrator in the incidents he describes. When the first person is introduced for the sake of the edification of the reader, there need be no apology; when it is introduced for the glorification of the speaker, it is odious altogether.

A man must do his work as well as he can, whether, he Is praised for it or not The taste of publicity is likely to be what the taste of blood is to tiger or lion; it whets the desire for more of the same thing. There are some who rarely do a good deed without rushing to neighbor or newspaper to let it be known. To others the “free advertising” is abhorrent ' They are made happy by a glowing consciousness that the thing was done, and that auto-satisfaction of virtue is their reward. But most of us have not reached that lofty pinnacle whereon we can abide serenely independent of whiJt others think or say. We want a kind word now and then to keep us going. We hunger for appreciation, even when we tell purselves we are not worth it Who has not known the lift a letter of encouragement, a sentence of commendation, has brought? The day is brighter for it, and we feel refreshed, renewed. Blessed are they who speak in time thfe heartening, quickening word.