p. 28 | Seeing Good in Others

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 4, 1908

Seeing Good in Others

We can never draw out the good in others unless we first see in them the good that is not apparent. It takes ability and character to do this kind of seeing. It is not easy work. To see defects is easy; any mediocre person can do it, and can cultivate and encourage those defects by seeing them and talking about them. But to see the hidden good, and develop that, is the work of the highest type of character. It is every teacher's work, without which teaching becomes empty and useless. A superintendent of public schools in Indiana shows fitness for his difficult position when he writes: “When I find a teacher who fails to discover the essentially good in the worst child, I know that she limits her power to build character.” Every time we fail to see the good in others we are tying our own hands against helping them. And the fact that we do not see good in one never means that it is not there; it always means that we lack the ability which we ought to have.—Sunday School Times.