No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted
Happy New Year!
It was good to welcome our students back to school on Tuesday (and to wish the best of luck to those in Y11 and Upper Sixth who have been working their way through the mock exams).
In September, our first assembly of the School year referenced Aesop’s fables, a collection of stories passed down from the 7th Century BCE and eventually collated some three hundred years after his death. They were catalogued in the 20th Century by an American Professor of Classics called Ben Edwin Perry, and have remained a source of direction and wisdom to this day. Kindness appears as a theme in several of Aesop’s fables, and it’s also something we talk a lot about at Brentwood, linked to our values of Virtue, Learning, and Manners. We often discuss with our students the fact that being kind is – or should be – simple and easy, but it can also be difficult in some circumstances (when others have been unkind to us, when we’re tired or feeling under pressure, or worried about something). It can also sometimes feel as though it won’t make a difference, such as when a problem we’re facing needs much more than a kind word or small action.
One of the most famous lines from across the 700+ fables listed in the Perry Index is about kindness. It comes from Fable number 150 – The Lion and the Mouse:
A Lion lay asleep in the forest, his great head resting on his paws. A timid little Mouse came upon him unexpectedly, and in her fright and haste to get away, ran across the Lion’s nose. Roused from his nap, the Lion lay his huge paw angrily on the tiny creature to kill her. ‘Spare me!’ begged the poor Mouse. ‘Please let me go, and some day I will surely repay you.’The Lion was much amused to think that a Mouse could ever help him. But he was generous and finally let the Mouse go. Some days later, while stalking his prey in the forest, the Lion was caught in the toils of a hunter’s net. Unable to free himself, he filled the forest with his angry roaring. The Mouse knew the voice and quickly found the Lion struggling in the net. Running to one of the great ropes that bound him, she gnawed it until it parted, and soon the Lion was free. ‘You laughed when I said I would repay you,’ said the Mouse. ‘Now you see that even a Mouse can help a Lion.’
The underlying message of the story is, of course, that kindness is reciprocal and that no matter who or where we are or in our lives, even the smallest acts can have a significant impact. Or, as Aesop said: ‘No act of kindness, however small, is wasted.’
I invited our students on Tuesday to consider the story of the Lion and the Mouse, first told thousands of years ago, and how it might encourage us to choose kindness as our New Year’s resolution for 2026.
Have a great weekend
Best wishes
Michael Bond
