“THE CURSE OF ADAM”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 75, Issue 6443, 7 November 1947, Page 4

“THE CURSE OF ADAM”

KIPLING’S REMEDY FOR SELFCENTREDNESS There seems to be something inherent in human nature by which people like to work primarily for themselves and for their own families, and in a manner that pleases themselves and their families, "it has, for instance, often been said, that a man will seldom make a success of any enterI prise unless his wife ais) likes that [ enterprise. ; Kipling, in one of his poems, told a fable, that a committee of wise men were set up to study whether human beings could be persuaded to work for the whole of society rather than for themselves, as they customarily did. The sub-committee turned in a resolution, the poem said, that read as follows : “Your sub-committee believe, You can lighten the curse of Adam When you have lightened the curse of Eve, And until we are built like angels, With hammer and chisel and pen We’ll work for ourselves and a woman For ever and ever. Amen.”