London, March 10.
We are so accustomed to the idea of a person doing his duty—or his best—that, however great the voluntary services he may render the community, no one ever thinks of thanking him for his efforts. No doubt if one of the great, he or she will get something which is distributed on specified occasions to those who think that the grant of a title ought to come their way, but while we thus recognize merit—or pushfulness—in the standers in the limelight there is no one even to give a letter of thanks for work which may have been far more useful to the community and which may have cost the worker unlimited time and effort. Admittedly the individual may not merit an appearance in the Honours List but there ought to be some gradual
all.
between this and nothing at Seriously, it would do no harm if the State would attach to some one's duty the task of writing a letter of appreciation on behalf of the State to those humbler individuals whose efforts have been unselfishly given on public work and who frankly would be amply satisfied with just this simple form of recognition. I have before me an actual type of such a case:—
_A. B., a cripple of relatively poor circumstances, but well-known in his native town for his moral qualities, raised over £1,000 in the war—in small and toilsome ways—for the wounded soldiers; organized scores of entertain.
them and spent practically all in this form of philanthropic the townsfolk know and appreciate what he did. There is no way of giving any recognition from the State to his humble efforts.
Why should there not be someone to write him a letter of thanks on investigation of the facts and the establishment of their accuracy? One cannot maybe expect even a private letter to be sent from the Royal Household while the State has no one to whom it could delegate the task. Perhaps like the heavy artillery Royalty should not be brought into action for these humbler cases but the State might well do it. It might even possess and distribute a medal for the purpose. The recipients would be well satisfied since it is only a sort of innocent, not unnatural, pride which would gratify them in being able to hand down a memento of State service to their children. Anyway these cases are very numerous and the remedy so easy. Why not appoint an Official Giver of Thanks for the State?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.