---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 6
number: 6
published: 1903-04
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations, "Interesting Selections," *Improvement Era* 6, no. 6 (April 1903): 455.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0606unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera0606unse
start_page: 455
end_page: 455
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1903-04)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0606unse
  publication_year: 1903
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1903, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Interesting Selections

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JOHi^ NICHOLSON. 455
platform. He is still a member of the High Council. His strong
love of justice, outspoken candor and conscientious regard for
truth and right, added to his sound judgment, keenness of
perception and general intelligence, eminently qualify him for the
responsibilities of that sacred and important position. The
mellowing spiritual atmosphere of the holy House of God, in which
he labors daily, is as congenial to his nature as its influence is
manifest in all his ministrations.
SELECTIONS OF INTEREST.
Important medical and surgical discoveries are reported both
in America and from abroad. The news comes from Baltimore of
the discovery of an effective serum for the prevention and cure of
cholera infantum and kindred diseases, by Dr. Simon Flexner, who
is to be chief of staff of the new Rockefeller Institute of Medical
Research. No less important is an announcement, published on
the day that Helen Keller made her impassioned plea before a leg-
islative committee in Boston for the future of the educated blind;
a French surgeon has devised an electric apparatus which he says
will enable the blind to see, by conveying images directly to the
brain, independent of the medium of the eye. The apparatus is
being perfected in Paris by Professor Peter Stiens. Physicians
assert that the new process is an elaboration of a well-known prin-
ciple that by contact of certain substances with nerve centres im-
ages more or less defined may be impressed upon the brain.—CoZ-
lier's.
"A word to the wise"—"I am always afraid to reprove those
who misbehave," said a clergyman, deprecatingly, when annoyed
by several young people whispering and giggling right in the mid-
dle of his "fourthly." "Some years since, as I was preaching, a
young man who sat before me was constantly laughing, talking,
and making uncouth grimaces. I paused and administered &
severe rebuke. After the close of the services a gentleman said
to me: 'Sir, you made a great mistake. That young man you re-
proved is an idiot.' Since that, I have always been afraid to re-
prove those who misbehave themselves in chapel, lest I should
repeat that mistake, and reprove another idiot." There was no
occasion to reprove any one during the rest of his sermon.