[This may easily be converted into a dialogue between the older speaker and some child.]
The other day I heard John say this: “I can’t make myself do right, even when I want to. It’s no matter, even if I don’t mind my conscience.”
Then I set to work to talk to John something after this fashion: “Did you ever see any one,” I asked, “who was troubled with aphasia?”
“Why, what a queer word!” said John; “what is it?”
“Aphasia,” said I, “is a disease that makes it impossible for a person to use the words he wants to use. For instance, if a man is sick in that way, and wants to say, ‘Pass me the bread, please,’ he is just as likely to say, ‘Paint me the locomotive.’”
“Why, what a funny disease!” said John.
“Yes, and a terrible disease,” said I, “when one can’t make his tongue say what he wants it to say. And have you ever seen any one with the rickets?” I asked.
“No. What’s the rickets?” asked John.
“That’s a disease,” I answered, “in which the bones lose all their stiffness and become like jelly, so that the poor man cannot walk straight, or even stand up.”
“How dreadful!” said John.
“It makes some difference, then, does it,” asked I, “whether one’s feet mind him or not?”
“Why, of course,” said John.
“And have you ever seen a drunken man?” I asked. John’s head nodded emphatically, for he had seen lots of them.
“Then you know that drunken people not only have diseases like aphasia and rickets, but, what is worse, they are not even able to control their thoughts. Their hands go where they do not want them to go, their feet do not mind them, their tongue says the most ridiculous things, and their brain is all in a whirl. Isn’t that the worst disease of all?”
“Yes, indeed,” agreed John.
“And now, John,” said I, very earnestly, “you think that all these are terrible diseases, but I just heard you say yourself that you can’t make yourself do right even when you want to. Why, that is all that is the matter with the man who has aphasia,—he can’t make his tongue speak right when he wants to. And the man with the rickets can’t make his feet walk right when he wants to. And the drunken man has no control over himself at all. You don’t want to class yourself with these, do you? That would indeed be a serious matter. But I want to tell you, John, that you can make yourself do right, if you want to. There may come a time, however, if you don’t use this power, when that power will be taken away from you, and then you will be as bad as the drunken man, won’t you?”
John went away with a very thoughtful face, though he said nothing.