Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1874 — Good Temper. [ARTICLE]

Good Temper.

“ The horse that frets is the horse that sweats” is an old saying of horsemen, and it is just as true of men as of horses. The man that allows himself to get irritated at every little thing that goes amiss in his business or in the ordinary affairs of life is a man that,, as a rule, will accomplish little and wear out early. He is a man for whom bile and dyspepsia have a peculiar fondness and for whom children have a peculiar aversion. He is a man with a perpetual thorn in his flesh which pricks and wounds at the slightest movement; a man for whom life has little pleasure and the future small hope. To “ keep jolly” under all provocations is perhaps a task which only Dickens’ Mark Tapley could perform. We never have met Mark Tapley in our experience of human nature, but we have seen him closely approximated; and it would be well it people in general could approach more nearly that inimitable character. In all the phases, emergencies and occupations of human life good temper is a commodity for which there is great demand; but in those which bring an individual into daily contact with many others it is perhaps in greatest demand and most limited supply. - To foremen in shops and superintendents of large manufacturing establishments, good temper is a mast valuable qualification. Indeed, this article was suggested by a notable want of good temper in the treatment of subordinates by a foreman in an establishment recently visited by us. It was evident that this establishment was pervaded by a spirit of revolt, begotten by the browbeating, insolent language and manner of the foreman. The men were sulky and obstinate, being undoubtedly rendered unmanageable and restless by the total disregard of amenity in the man placed over them. Surely, thought we, whatever skill in his profession this man might possess, it was dearly purchased at the expense of willing service on the ,pars of the workmen. When, from any cause, a man is forced to add to his physical toil the burden of a discontented mind, he will neither do as much nor as good work as when his heart is light and his mind easy. It requires more than technical knowland skill to make a good foreman. The power to manage and control men is an essential which can npver be found apart from good nature. Of course, we do not mean that sort of “ good nature” which results from want of firmness, but that broad, wholesome, breezy heartiness that feels good itself and loves to have others feel good, and which shows itself as much in rebuke as in praise.— Scientific American. ; L