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This is the sort of teasing a conversationalist should indulge in a lot. But if he cannot give his raillery a kindly twist he should avoid it. I would especially caution young people against caustic teasing. And I would tell parents and teachers to keep warning their youngsters not to tease harshly, hurtfully, unkindly. Boys have sometimes been called the cruelest young barbarians in the world. They are not only savage in their humor, they are also bullies — in that they keep directing it at the weakest, the most defenseless. It is written of the gentle English poet, William Cowper: At six he was sent away to a boy's school, where he was terrified by young barbarians who made his life miserable. There was one atrocious bully into whose face Cowper could never look; he recognized his enemy by his shoe buckles (Wm. J. Long, History of English Literature [Ginn and Co., 1919], |
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