Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/515

 keep in mind the exemplary Way by whose guidance all tasks are made plain.

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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.—, "Studies in Religious Nurture."

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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.

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See ;.

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.

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Neglect in Church Attendance—See .

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."

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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.