Chapter VI: "try the Other End."

The other day I came across a man who was tugging with all his might at the wrong end of a lever. That is, he had a great crowbar, almost as large as he could lift, and was bearing down on one end of it, while the block of wood which he had put under it for a _purchase_, was at the same end. He was trying to pry up a large stone in that way. But the stone would not be pryed up. It was a very obstinate stone, the good old farmer thought. He had no notion of giving up the project, however. So he pulled off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and went to work in right good earnest. Still the stone did not stir; or if it did it was only just enough to aggravate the man.

What could be the matter? The stone was not a very large one. It did not look as if it could stand a great deal of prying. What was the matter?

There happened to be a school-boy passing that way at the time. He was not much of a farmer, and still less of a mechanic, I should think; but he thought he saw what the trouble was. It did not seem to be so much the lever itself, or the farmer, or the stone to be moved, as in the way the man went to work. The boy ventured to hint this idea to the farmer:

"Why, my dear sir," he said, "there is no use in your breaking your neck in that style. You are at the wrong end of the lever. You haven't _purchase_ enough."

The good-natured farmer (for he _was_ good-natured, and did not get into a passion because a mere boy, young enough to be his grand-child, attempted to help him out of his difficulty) the good-natured farmer stopped a moment, looked at the matter carefully, and frankly acknowledged that he had gone the wrong way to work.

"I wonder what on earth I was thinking of," said he, in his usual blunt language. Of course he shifted his crow-bar immediately, so as to get a good _purchase_. The trouble was all over then. The stone came up easily enough, of course.

It came into my mind while I was thinking about this farmer's mistake in the use of his lever, that certain people--myself included, perhaps--might profit by this blunder.

A great many, for instance, use the lever of _truth_--a very good crow-bar, the best to be had--in overturning moral evils. But they do not accomplish anything, because they take hold of the wrong end of the lever. They have no _purchase_.

Here is a man, who, as I think, is in the habit of wrong doing every day. Well, I settle it in my mind that I will talk to him, and see if I cannot make a better man of him. I look him up, and go to prying at his sin, like a man digging up pine stumps by the job. I call him hard names. Why not? He deserves them. Everybody knows that. I do not mince the matter with him at all. But what I say seems to have no good effect upon him. It makes him angry, and he advises me to mind my own business, assuring me, at the same time, that he shall take good care to mind his.

I see plainly enough that I have been working half an hour or more to no purpose, and that very likely I have made matters worse. Yet what was my error?

Simply this: that I spent all my strength at the short arm of the lever. If I had gone to work with a kind and tender spirit, something as Nathan went to work at David, once on a time, and used the other end of the lever, I should have got a good _purchase_, at least, and I am not sure but the stone would have yielded. As it is, however, the troublesome thing is there yet, and it seems to be settling into the ground deeper than ever.

I know some good people, among whom I can count half a score of ministers, who try very hard to keep bad books and periodicals out of the family circle.

There is no end to their talk against these things. They tell their children that they must never read such and such books, and that if they ever catch one of them reading these books, they shall take good care to punish them for it.

But in spite of all the efforts of these people, they don't succeed in keeping these bad books out of the family. In some way or other, they are smuggled into the hands of a boy or girl, and they are read, while the parent, perhaps, knows nothing of it. That is all wrong, of course. I don't mean to say anything to excuse the boy or girl--nothing of the kind. But why didn't these parents go another way to work? Why, instead of preaching all those long sermons on bad books, and threatening their children with punishment in case they read these books, why did they not provide other books, equally interesting, though innocent and useful? That would have been a wiser course, methinks. That would have been the right end of the crow-bar to work at. The way to get rid of an evil is to find something else to put in its place. So I think.

But some of these very fathers and mothers, though they cry out so loudly against immoral books and periodicals, say they cannot afford to buy books for their children. It was only last week that I heard one of them tell a friend, who asked him to subscribe for a magazine for his daughter, that he was poor, and could not afford it. Poor! he gave one party last winter, on this same daughter's account, which cost him more than a hundred dollars. He cannot afford it! Well, if he does not afford to furnish reading for those children, I am afraid they will afford it themselves.

I have seen a little girl, when her sister had been doing something wrong, run straight to her mother, and tell her of it. But it only made the little mischief-maker worse. She went the wrong way to work. She labored hard enough to come at her sister's fault; but her labor was all thrown away. She was at the wrong end of the crow-bar. If, instead of posting off, as fast as she could run, to her mother, every time that sister did wrong, as if she really _liked_ to be a tell-tale, she had said, as kindly as she could, "Susy, don't do so; that's naughty," or something of the kind, I presume it would all have been well enough.