quired for its special use. The objection to adopting any specialized work as its authority is that a member of the society is at a disadvantage when in a meeting of any other organization to which he may belong.
Ignorance of the rules and customs of deliberative assemblies is a heavy handicap to any one who expects to influence the policy of a society. Frequently the most judicious members fail to carry out their plans when they could easily have done so had they been moderately familiar with parliamentary law. Without some knowledge of this subject one is powerless in an assembly where his opponents are skilled parliamentarians, and therefore, in a land where perhaps most of the persons who have reached the age of sixteen years are members of one or more societies, some knowledge of parliamentary law may be justly regarded as a necessary part of the education of every man and woman, every boy and girl.
While it is important to every person in a free country to know something of parliamentary law, this knowledge should be used only to help, not to hinder, business. One who is constantly raising points of order and insisting upon the strict observance of every rule in a peaceable assembly in which most of the members are ignorant of these rules and customs, makes himself a nuisance, hinders business, and prejudices people against parliamentary law. Such a person is either ignorant of its real purpose or else wilfully misuses his knowledge.
