OCR Text |
Show o THE 'GIFT OF SILENCE. The very greatest emphasis is placed on the teaching of speech. Our schools spend their millions to teach young people how to talk intelligently and effectively. Ability to express oneself is considered one of the greatest great-est arts of life. And yet there are many people who know how to express themselves far too well, and whose principal need it to learn to keep their mouths shut. For instance a friend who had a trained nurse in his family was telling about her peculiarities. She was wonderfully won-derfully skilled in her profession, watchful, indef atigible, and energetic. Yet she wearied the patients during their convalescence and exhausted the family by her endless accounts of her own experiences and her personal'views about life. The practical result was that she was working for some $6 to $8 less then,equally well trained nurses were getting. Her glib habits of speech were costing her just about a dollar a day. Perhaps it was worth that to her to be able to talk all she wanted to, yet one doubts it. Business offices and workshops are full of just such cases. There are fellows whose power of speech is perfectly per-fectly irrespressible. You simply can't shut them up. They are so friendly and helpful in many ways that you can't seem to get along without them. At the same time they distract the attention of their fellow workmen, and are so much absorbed in self expression as to reduce their output of work. The practical result in their case is that they finally lose positions or are kept along at reduced salaries. Business offices and workshops are what their name applies, and are not social centers. People with conversational conver-sational gifts can find plenty of outlet for the same in club and society life. They need to cultivate that subtle sense of their surroundings that will teach them when to speak and when to keep silence. |