Let Us Be Just

By Mrs. A. J. Wilder. Mansfield, Missouri

Two little girls had disagreed, as was to be expected because they were so temperamentally different. They wanted to play in different ways and as they had to play together all operations were stopped while they argued the question. The elder of the two had a sharp tongue and great facility in using it. The other was slow to speak but quick to act and they both did their best according to their abilities.

Said the first little girl: "You've got a snub nose and your hair is just a common brown color. I heard Aunt Lottie say so! Ah! Don't you wish your hair was a be-a-utiful golden like mine and your nose a fine shape? Cousin Louisa said that about me. I heard her!"

The second little girl could not deny these things. Her dark skin, brown hair and snub nose as compared with her sister's lighter coloring and regular features, were a tragedy in her little life. She could think of nothing cutting to reply for she was not given to seeing unkind things nor was her tongue nimble enough to say them, so she stood digging her bare toes into the ground,hard, helpless and tongue-tied.

The first little girl, seeing the effect of her words talked on. "Besides, you're five years younger than I am and I know more than you so you have to mind me and do as I say!"

This was too much! Sister was prettier, no answer could be made to that. She was older, it could not be denied, but that gave her no right to command. At last here was a chance to act!

"And you have to mind me," repeated the first little girl. "I will not!" said the second little girl and then to show her contempt for such authority, this little brown girl slapped her elder, golden-haired sister.

I hate to write the end of the story. No, not the end! No story is ever ended! It goes on and on and the effects of this one followed this little girl all her life, showing in her hatred of injustice. I should say that I dislike to tell what came next for the golden-haired sister ran crying and told what had happened, except her own part in the quarrel, and the little brown girl was severely punished. To be plain, she was soundly spanked and set in a corner. She did not cry but sat glowering at the parent who punished her and thinking in her rebellious little mind that when she was large enough she would return the spanking with interest.

It was not the pain of the punishment that hurt so much as the sense of injustice, the knowledge that she had not been treated fairly by one from whom she had the right to expect fair treatment, and that there had been a failure to understand where she had thought a mistake impossible. She had been beaten and bruised by sister's unkind words and had been unable to reply. She had defended herself in the only way possible for her and felt that she had a perfect right to do so, or if not, then both should have been punished.

Children have a fine sense of justice that sometimes is far truer than that of other persons, and in almost every case, if appealed to, will prove the best help in governing them. When children are ruled through their sense of justice there are no angry thoughts left to rankle in their minds. Then a punishment is not an injury inflicted upon them by some one who is larger and stronger but the inevitable consequence of their own acts and a child's mind will understand this much sooner than one would think. What a help all their lives, in self control and self government this kind of training would be!

We are prone to put so much emphasis on the desirability of mercy that we overlook the beauties of the principle of justice. The quality of mercy is a gracious, beautiful think, but with more justice in the world there would be less need for mercy and exact justice is most merciful in the end. The difficulty is that we are so likely to make mistakes we cannot trust our judgment and so must be merciful to offset our own shortcomings, but I feel sure when we are able to comprehend the workings of the principle of justice, we shall find that instead of being opposed to each other, infallible justice and mercy are one and the same thing.

Mrs. A. J. Wilder. "Let Us Be Just." Missouri Ruralist,  (September 5, 1917): page 16.

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