TRUE GREATNESS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 410, 20 December 1932, Page 6

TRUE GREATNESS

Our Own Correspondent) .

SOME HOMELY PHILOSOPHY IN A CHILD' S ESSAY

(From

At the recent ^rize-giving ceiiemony of the Opotiki D.H.S., the Maybr, Mr. J. T. Thompson, read an essay on "True Greatness" wrntten by a pupil at a small country scliool. The essay contains some simple phijj osophy which is well worth reproI ducing. It ran as f ollows: — A person can never get True Greatness by trying for it You can get it when you are not loolcing for it. It is nice to have good clothes, it makes it a lot easier to act decently, but it is a sign of true greatness to act when you have not got them, just as good as if you had. One time when Ma was a little girl they had a bird at their house called BilL-that broke his leg. They thought they would have to kill him but next morning they found him propped up scrt of sideways on his good leg, singing. That was true greatness. Once there was a woman that had | done a big washing, and hung it on a line. The line broke and let.it all down in the mud, but she didn't say a word only did it all over again, and this time she spread it on the grass where it couldn't fall. But that night a dog with dirty feet ran over it. When she saw what it had done she sat down and didn't cry a bit. All she said was "Ain't it queer now that he didn't miss anything?" That was true greatness, but its only people _ that have done Jwushing that know it. Once there was a woman that lived near a pig pen and when the wind blew that way it was very smelly, and at first when she went there she could not smell anything but pig, but when she lived there a while she learnt to smell the clover blossoms through it. That was true greatness.