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Show Uncommon Sense By John Blake QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS THE craze for questions has to some extent succeeded the craze for the cross-word puzzles. Industrious editors1, or people hired by them cull out lists of questions, and submit them to their readers. The readers sharpen their pencils and their wits and try to answer them. The average result from adults is about twenty correct answers in fifty. The exercise is good exercise, for some of the questions which cannot be answered indicate very bad memories mem-ories or very poor reading. , The ability to S'upply correct dates is not very important. But the knowledge of what is going on in the world is important. And when people discover that they know what Roentgen rays are, and that they do not knowithe difference between vitamines and calories, and that they have not the slightest idea what John Huss or Galileo did to get their names into the question lists, it is time to take thought. These questionnaires give everybody an opportunity to find out how they are "keeping up" and to revis their reading and thinking methods in order or-der t- atone for what they have forgotten for-gotten or what they never read. This is an "immensely interesting world, and it is a privilege to know as much about it as the average mind can know. One of the worst of all mental vices is indifference. It is considered funny to reply "what of it" when told that the-Wright brothers invented the airplane, and that a Dutch janitor discovered the first microbe, but it proves a lack of intelligence, and a lack of appreciation apprecia-tion of life and what life means that ought fo be a cause for shame. The man who gets little out of life has himself to blame. Even if he knows his own business and the way to succeed in it, he is ignorant, though he may have made an abundance of money. Look over these questions, and try to answer them. If you can't answer the important ones, there is not only something the matter with you, but there is something some-thing the matter with your capacity to get all that there is to be got out of life. v 1 have known men who have been twice or three times around the world, and are still ignorant. I have known men who have been through college and are still Ignorant. But ignorance of that kind is far from bliss it is the possession of an inferior mind, which is half-blind and half-deaf, and which never is illuminated illumi-nated by the real light of ordinary knowledge. You can't brush up by reading dictionaries dic-tionaries of facts, but you can by reading history and by reading the newspapers carefully become intelligent, intelli-gent, and become company for yourself your-self as well as for your associates. (CopyrlRht.) O |