“I did the best I knew!” protested the dressmaker’s apprentice
sullenly, when she was sharply reprimanded for a piece of
ill-judged work that ruined a valuable dress and vexed a
valuable customer. “I don’t see what she’s blaming me for!”
“I’m not blaming you for doing the best you knew how!” said the
employer, overhearing and turning on her crisply; “I’m blaming
you for not knowing any better! You ought to--you’ve been here
long enough. You mean well, but good intentions aren’t enough to
carry on the dressmaking business.”
They are not enough in any business. It is an old proverb that good
intentions pave a place of very disreputable character. “He meant well”
is about the poorest thing one can say of a person, short of actual
detraction; unless we except that other phrase of mild apology: “He did
the best he knew how.” Whenever you hear either of these you know at
once that it is a case of failure on somebody’s part to do the right
thing at the right moment, and usually, if you look closely enough,
there was fault behind the failure. To do the best we know how is not
enough when we might know any better.--_Kind Words._
(1731)