Etiquette and Our Elders

As a rule, your parents and your teachers are your best counsellors. They have traveled the road before you, and have your highest interests at heart. Listen to them.

Duty to Older People

“The mildest manners, and the gentlest heart.” —Pope

1) Show especial deference—not indifference—to your superiors in age, office, and the like. Do this not once, but always. Watch for opportunities.

2) Rise, when an older person who is standing begins to talk to you.

3) If you wish to become a musician, you seek help from the finest musical instructor within reach. Just so in the greater art of living effectively, seek help from those who have learned wisdom. As a rule, your parents and your teachers are your best counsellors. They have traveled the road before you, and have your highest interests at heart. Listen to them. Don't make your life a wild experiment in blundering; it doesn't pay.

4) Never regard age, even advanced age, as a joke. To do so blunts your own sensibilities.— From 1921's “Manners and Conduct in School and Out” by Fanny R. Smith

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia