The wisdom or unwisdom of things is not always apparent on their
face. Paul speaks of “the foolishness of preaching.” Most of the
great inventors and discoverers were not considered wise in the
initial stages of their great careers. Columbus was misunderstood
and ridiculed, Watt was regarded as a dreamer, Morse found few
supporters, Ericsson could not get Government support for building
the _Monitor_, yet all these men were great and wise men. A
curious instance of wise foolishness is that related of an important
advertiser, who said:
We once hit upon a novel expedient for ascertaining over what
area our advertisements were read. We published a couple of
half-column “ads” in which we purposely misstated half a dozen
historical facts. In less than a week we received between 300
and 400 letters from all parts of the country from people
wishing to know why on earth we kept such a consummate fool who
knew so little about American history. The letters kept pouring
in for three or four weeks. It was one of the best-paying “ads”
we ever printed. But we did not repeat our experiment because
the one I refer to served its purpose. Our letters came from
schoolboys, girls, professors, clergymen, school-teachers and in
two instances from eminent men who have a world-wide reputation.
(1121)
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