Making Mistakes
IllustrationStory★★★★A teacher of elocution went a long distance one night to hear Mr. Beecher deliver an address. When the sermon was finished, he pushed up to the front and said to the speaker, “Mr. Beecher, I am an elocution teacher from the State of New Jersey. I came over to hear the greatest American preacher, but I am terribly disappointed.”
“What is the matter now?” asked Beecher.
“Well, sir, I counted eighty errors in grammar in your sermon.”
“Is that all?” asked Beecher. “I would have wagered my old hat that there were over eight hundred if you hadn’t told me.”
Our Times, James Wallace, June 1949; reprinted in Signs of the Times, March 2005.
The point
A preachy elocution teacher criticized Beecher's grammar, claiming 80 errors. Beecher replied he would have wagered 800—a humble rebuke of pedantry.