In the school lunch line, a loud voice carries the cruel question of why anyone "that size" needs to eat at all. On the way to an assembly in the auditorium, several students begin speaking incoherently, obviously imitating the imprecise words of a child who has a speech impediment. In study hall, a buzz of malicious gossip spreads concerning the social misfortunes of a classmate.

We - meaning society at large - seem to have accepted as fact the premise that children can be cruel. Caring parents try to teach their children to be kind and compassionate, to have empathy as well as sympathy. Unfortunately, the lesson sometimes is as hard for adults to teach as it is for children to comprehend. And, even more unfortunate, it seems that many adults have yet to learn the lesson themselves.On just about any given day, we hear adults making negative comments about others. Critical tongues wag about other people's methods of rearing children; or their poor housekeeping skills; or their physical appearance, whether they weigh too much or too little. The list goes on and on. There is no end to the faults that one person can find in another's life. But what is the source of such comments, and where do these biting criticisms really lead?

It's an all-too common practice to talk about others, to thoughtlessly criticize, ridicule or make fun of them for the qualities or traits that make them different. Such aids the adversary.

More than three decades ago, President David O. McKay wrote: "In upholding the good in others [a man] makes better his own soul. He that looks for the good shall find it; and he who protects another's good name makes bright his own.

"But the opposite is true as well. If every man is the keeper of his brother's good name, he who proves false to his trust weakens his own good character, stains his own soul. There is a mean element in human nature . . . which secretly gloats upon others' failures. The more one yields to this meanness, the meaner one becomes. . . .

"Looking for the good does not mean being blind to the bad. Human nature is full of weaknesses and frailties; . . . But in organized society . . . there are means established whereby weaknesses may be corrected and evils overcome. They are only made worse when magnified and multiplied by gossip's idle tongue. It is a deplorable fact that the eye of the gossip and the slanderer sees not only no good in others, but sees `evil where no evil exists.' Ofttimes many evil, vicious things that are circulated exist only in the imagination of . . . evil-thinking minds. How sordid must be that person's soul who would defame the honor and good name of an innocent friend or neighbor!" (The Instructor, Vol. 95, June 1960, pp. 177-178.)

President McKay noted that true religion as exemplified in the gospel of Jesus Christ teaches that every man should be the defender of his brother's good name. In the scriptures, we are admonished to overlook each other's trespasses: " . . . ye ought to forgive one another; for he that forgiveth not his brother his trespasses standeth condemned before the Lord; for there remaineth in him the greater sin." (D&C 64:9.)

"The second most deadly instrument of destruction is the gun - the first is the human tongue," wrote one insightful man. "The gun merely kills bodies; the tongue kills reputations and ofttimes ruins characters. Each gun works alone; each loaded tongue has a hundred accomplices. . . .

"The crimes of the tongue are words of unkindness, anger, malice, envy, bitterness, harsh criticism, gossip, lying and scandal. Theft and murder are awful crimes, yet in any single year the aggregate sorrow, pain and suffering they cause in a nation is microscopic when compared with the sorrows that come from the crimes of the tongue. . . . (The Kingship of Self-Control, by William George Jordan, quoted by Elder Thorpe B. Isaacson, April 1964 general conference.)

The Savior taught, "Love one another." (John 13:34.) Extending kindnesses toward and having sympathy for others must certainly be divine attributes of the human soul, means of expressing the kind of love the Savior said we are are to have if we are truly His disciples. (See John 13:35.) Being kind to each other and speaking kind words to and about others ought to be a life-time endeavor.