“What’s a circus?” innocently inquired the young Korea-American.
“A circus! Don’t you know what a circus is? Haven’t you ever seen a circus?” And scorn passing words filled the Ohio lad’s voice, as he eyed in boundless contempt this queer visitor.
The boy from Korea was stung to the quick, and he retorted: “Well, what of that? Did you ever see the Pacific Ocean? Were you ever on a warship? Did you ever see Hongkong? Did you ever see the diving boys at Colombo? Were you ever in India? Did you ever see the pyramids? What do you know about London?”
Vengeance was complete. The devotee of the circus was silenced. Before these bigger wonders his traveling tent show grew very small indeed. Similarly, the man who follows the trail of the missionary may lose his intimate contact with some of the inconsequentialities of the day’s newspaper, but he will have big and abiding compensations.—William T. Ellis, “Men and Missions.”
(1735)
Knowledge in Action—See [Teacher, The Ideal at Work].
KNOWLEDGE, LIVING
Some one asked Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, why he continued to study for his pupils “as tho he should not have enough to give them.” “It is not,” was his reply, “because I fear I should not have enough to give them, but because I prefer that they should be supplied from a running stream rather than from a stagnant pool.”
“Stagnant pools” have been the ruin of many men in many walks of life.
(1736)