Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/575



"Did you know this telephone business has resulted in a telephone ear?" said a clerk whose work called him constantly to the telephone, according to The Tribune, New York. "I don't mean that our hearing is injured, but that the left ear becomes more keen than the right. If you'll notice, all the telephones are left-handed. That is, the instruments are so placed that we hold the receiver with the left hand, so that we may have the right hand free to use in taking notes of messages, I presume. Of course, one naturally claps the receiver to his left ear, as it would be almost impossible to twist it around to his right ear. Consequently, the left ear gradually becomes much sharper in catching sounds than the right ear. If you don't believe it, just try holding the receiver in your right hand some time and use your right ear. You'll find that conversation which was perfectly distinct to the left ear sounds confused and muffled to the right, and there is a distinct effort to understand. It is simply that the left ear is a trained telephone ear, while the right ear is not. (Text.)

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Rubenstein—that thunderer of the key-board—is credited with the following dictum: "If I do not practise for a day I know it; if I miss two days my friends know it; and if I miss three days the public knows it." (Text.)

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PRACTISE AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING

Many children outside of the Sunday-*school will learn the Bible from Christian parents or will study it for themselves; but there is no way, so far as I can conceive, of learning the industrial work of the church except in some such training-school as the young people's society furnishes. For this work can be learned only by doing it. It can not be taught by text-books, or imparted by instruction. Like every other kind of industrial training, it must be gained by practise. The carpenter learns to build a house with saw and hammer and nails in hand, not by reading an elaborate treatise on house-building. The painter takes his easel and brush, and practises long and patiently, if he would be an artist; there is no other way. It is exactly the same with the necessary activities of church life. If the church is worth sustaining, if its work is to be done in the future, if we are to have prayer-meetings and missionary activities and an earnest religious life, if the Church is to be a power for good citizenship and righteous living, it must have some such industrial training-school.—, "Proceedings of the Religious Education Association," 1903.

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PRACTISE, GRADUATED

In drilling recruits for the Chinese army, each man is required to carry sand in his knapsack. For the first day he carries two ounces; on each succeeding day he increases this amount two ounces, until at last he is carrying sixteen pounds. These men can run at a dog-trot for ten consecutive hours and arrive at the end of that time in a fit condition for fighting.—, "Smiling 'Round the World."

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Practising What They Preach—See.

PRAISE

Ruby T. Weyburn, in The Youth's Companion, gives this fanciful origin of the music of praise:

The Jews have an old tradition that when the world was done, And God from His work was resting, He called to Him, one by one, The shining troops of the angels, and showing the wonder wrought, The Master asked of His servants what they of the vision thought.

Then one white angel, dreaming o'er the marvel before him spread, Bent low in humble obeisance, lifted his voice, and said: "One thing only is lacking—praise from the newborn tongue, The sound of a hallelujah by the great creation sung."

So God created music—the voices of land and sea, And the song of the stars revolving in one vast harmony. Out of the deep uprising, out from the ether sent, The song of the destined ages thrilled through the firmament.