Article September 21, 1899 Issue

From the Religious Press

Probably there are comparatively few of us who have not experienced the sense of exasperation that arises when something we have executed is criticised and condemned for defects of details, while the general purpose and effect of the performance is entirely disregarded. The faults that the critic points out may be there; but we feel that we have been unjustly treated in not having the scope and purpose of our work taken into account. Trifles, it is often said, make up perfection; but we are all the time conscious that perfect trifles do not necessarily constitute a great and worthy whole, and that a masterpiece may involve many faults of details. There may be false rhymes in a majestic poem; the great orator may mispronounce a word or two; there may be imperfect stones in a noble spire; but the man who can form his estimate of poem or speech or temple on the basis of these defects is guilty of the most flagrant injustice. Unless we mistake, one of the common causes of that brooding sense of injustice that is so common in the minds of sensitive children, is just that unsympathetic criticism to which they are often subjected by parents, teachers, and older children. Without being able to explain it they are conscious that what they do is estimated by its trivial and incidental defects and not by the main purpose they have in mind. It is wonderful how the heart of a child who has lived in this atmosphere of unjust criticism goes out in a flood to one who shows sympathy with its main purpose. It feels that it is understood, and one of the richest experiences of any soul, whether child or adult, is the consciousness of being understood.

The Watchman (Baptist).

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