Part 5 (1/2)

X.

”I DON'T KNOW.”

How difficult it is for many people to say these words. They don't like to own that they are ignorant of anything. They want to make you think that they know everything. When you ask them a hard question, instead of saying right out, plumply and honestly, ”I don't know,”

they will try to trump up some answer that will not expose their ignorance. And oh, what wretched work they sometimes make with their answers. They make perfect fools of themselves.

People never appear well, among those of good sense, who attempt to pa.s.s themselves off as knowing more than they do. It is not to be expected that any one person can know everything; and why should you, or anybody else, be ashamed to own that you can't tell all about this thing, or that thing? Why it is often one part of wisdom to see that you can't understand a particular subject, and another part of wisdom to confess that you can't understand it.

I think that the dog, who figures with a certain vain, self-conceited monkey, in the fable, showed a good deal of wisdom in his remarks.

The monkey, you must know, belonged to a very learned astronomer. The animal often watched his master, while he was looking through his telescope. ”There must be something delightful in that,” he thought, and one day, when the astronomer was absent, the monkey looked through the instrument for a long time. But he saw nothing strange or wonderful; and so he concluded that his master was a fool, and that the telescope was all nonsense. Not long after that, he met Rover, the family dog, and he told him what he thought of his master. ”And what do _you_ think of the matter, friend Rover?” he added.

”I don't know the use of the telescope,” said the dog, ”and I don't know how wise our master may be. But I am satisfied of two things.”

”What are they?” the monkey asked.

”First,” said the dog, ”that telescopes were not made for monkeys to look through; and second, that monkeys were not made to look through telescopes.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LEARNED GEESE.]

XI.

THE LEARNED GEESE.

A FABLE.

A company of geese used to meet together very often, to talk about the affairs of the nation, and to contrive ways and means to do the public good. They were full of learning; had read all the valuable books that ever were printed in the goose language; and had got the notion into their heads that when they died, wisdom would perish in the earth.

They looked down upon the great ma.s.s of goosehood about them with feelings of pity--almost of contempt. At their public meetings--which were held pretty often, for they had much more public than private business to attend to--they occupied a great share of their time in discussing questions which were so deep and muddy, that n.o.body but they ever saw to the bottom of them. Indeed, many very sensible geese, who made few pretensions to learning, have doubted whether they saw very clearly into these questions themselves. I, too, have my doubts on the subject, as well as these sensible geese; and I go farther than they in my doubts. I doubt whether, in case any learned goose could see to the bottom of very many of these muddy subjects, his knowledge would be worth much to him. I will give you a specimen of some of the questions they used to debate upon, and leave you to judge of their value for yourselves. They were such as these:

”How _thick_ is the shadow of a goose in the moonlight?”

”How much would the shadow of a tolerably learned gander weigh, if it could be weighed?”

”How early do goslings begin to know a great many things, if not more?”

”When a fox starts off after a goose, is it because he loves himself, or because he loves his wife and the little foxes?”

”Whether geese ought not to be willing to die, for the sake of affording a good dinner to Christians on Christmas and Thanksgiving days?”

”Whether there would be such a thing as a good, pious goose, who was not willing to die for such a purpose?”