Etiquette and ‘Sparing the Rod’

                                               

Tempt Child Rather Than Spank Him

CHICAGO.— What can you do with the child who balks, dawdles or messes over his meals? Miss Catherine Landreth says it’s wrong to use songs, stories, pleadings, scoldings, threats, forced feedings or spankings. They merely give the child a stronger spotlight of attention, for which most children strive in one way or another. 

She should know whereof she speaks for she faces plenty of “young problems’’ in her role of assistant professor of home economics and director of the Chicago University Nursery School. She contends that teaching a child to eat, with good manners, all the food placed before him should be a matter of gradual training from the time he can first feed himself. 

3 Hints For Mamas 

She advises parents to: 

1. Check the child’s general health to see that he gets enough sleep and outdoor play. 

2. Prepare wholesome foods as attractively as possible, serve reasonably small portions at regular intervals, leave the food before the child for a while and then remove it without comment. 

3. Make a child taste—but don’t force him to eat all of food he says he dislikes. Next time, serve the food in a quantity small enough that he will recall the last taste. 

Bright Colors Help 

A youngster’s eating is greatly enhanced, she says, by giving him bright-colored table appointments which he can handle comfortably himself. He should have a spoon he can grip firmly, steep-sided dishes that keep the food in place, and a small pitcher for pouring milk. And it’s not too early to start training when the baby makes his first awkward attempts at cooperation and independence, Miss Landreth maintains. 

He can be started with a high chair but should be moved to his own low table and chair as soon as he learns to handle eating utensils, the next step is the adults’ table but not until he has thoroughly mastered manners and understands he is to leave a clean plate.— By Aurelius Kinsey, AP Feature Service Writer, 1937

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

Cheerful Homes Make Happy Children

It requires gay courage to hide the vicissitudes of the day beneath a smile, but your child will get his example of courage or weakness from you. You are the source of his supply. If you let immediate disappointment befog your vision of success you’re vacillating, negative attitude is the pattern your child sees and adopts.

Tuning in With Our Children

“I am so happy I don't know what to do,” said a child to me this morning. “Father has had wonderful luck in his business and mother doesn't have the headache now, and our home is the happiest place in the world.” How susceptible children are to environment! They are bouyant or depressed according to the mood parents reflect. If we are neurotic or worry-ridden they are neurotic or worry-ridden and they are filled with fear complexes for children are more keenly imaginative than we adults.

For that reason if parents discuss the successes and failures of a business day at home they should do so with confidence and optimism or exercise extreme caution about what is said in the presence of their impressionable young folk.

In a home where father expresses pessimism and mother expresses worry the child easily becomes an apostle of failure, for the people in whom he has most confidence have undermined his belief in success.

It requires gay courage to hide the vicissitudes of the day beneath a smile, but your child will get his example of courage or weakness from you. You are the source of his supply. If you let immediate disappointment befog your vision of success you’re vacillating, negative attitude is the pattern your child sees and adopts.

The lives of great men reveal that crowning success is usually the culmination of a series of seeming defeats. It is defeat analyzed and adjusted to overcome the handicaps. The father referred to in this instance didn’t succeed on luck. His effort in adjusting his business to undermined his belief in success.

His effort in adjusting his business to make it pay dividends had succeeded after many serious reverses. He didn't quit trying and so he found the right combination. And it is a happy combination, indeed, that has affected his entire family. It has cured mother’s nervous headaches, and set a morose child to singing the praises of a happy home.

Every home should be the happiest place in the world to its child members. It will be a happier place for grownups as well as when we learn to emphasize our capacities for success and to minimize our defeats as transitory obstacles which courage and effort can dispel. – James Samuel Lacy, 1929

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

Etiquette Training – Early is Best

Good manners are but the expressions of a nature controlled... The rules of good breeding cannot be learned late in life, politeness cannot be assumed when one enters society at a given age. Training in good manners must be begun when the baby first learns to speak and continued through the years, for politeness is not always innate and spontaneous.

“Facts on Etiquette”

“Etiquette is not a body of formulas for the use of adults only; the rules of good breeding cannot be learned late in life, politeness cannot be assumed when one enters society at a given age. Training in good manners must be begun when the baby first learns to speak and continued through the years, for politeness is not always innate and spontaneous. The child does not know that all life is made smoother and simpler and sweeter by good behavior, and so this precept and its practice must be early inculcated. This constant rubbing off of rough comers produces a polish that makes it possible for the child to grow into the adult without awkwardness. Good manners are but the expressions of a nature controlled. They may be artificial, but anything is better than bad manners.” – The Weekly Calistogan, 1914

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

Kids’ Manners Last to Awaken

Siblings thawing out as the day goes on... “Once we get a chance to work off a bit of our bad manners in ill-humored speech or need we feel better immediately and the day takes on a more hopeful glow. We begin to thaw out and our manners steal back one by one, like guilty sheep that had gone astray.”

Our Children and Morning Manners

Manners are always shy at getting up in the morning. Perhaps they are the last of our accomplishments to waken, but surely, whatever the reason, they are conspicuously absent in the general family breakfast gathering. The children scrambling to be off on time for school, add to the unpleasantness. They are without a shadow of manners before noon! “Shut up!” snaps Jane. “Why don’t you step on my ear?” growls brother George. “Can't you remember there’s somebody else at the breakfast table beside yourself?” flares big sister. “I’m striving hard to forget it,” retorts Big Brother and having for once been equal to the occasion be forthwith unbounds and in beaming good humor passes the sugar to his offended sister. There's something about us that works that way. 

Once we get a chance to work off a bit of our bad manners in ill-humored speech or need we feel better immediately and the day takes on a more hopeful glow. We begin to thaw out and our manners steal back one by one like guilty sheep that had gone astray. There is none among us who has not been guilty and who has not wished and hoped for a happier morning mood. “Perhaps!” we muse, “the children will manage better. Their manners may hold over until the morning. Perhaps!" For the children’s sakes, let’s hope so. It is as hard to be had mannered as it is to bear the bad matters of those who wreak them upon us. What can wo do to prop the children’s morning manners? Begin the night before. Send them to bed on time and in the right mood. Watch them fold and arrange their clothes so that they will be easy to find and put on in the morning. That's a big part of the battle. Call them on time and see that they get their turn in the bathroom. 

Bathroom etiquette has a great deal to do with the good humor and consequent good manners of the family In the mornings. The person who monopolizes the bathroom for shaving or hairdressing or private laundry work is an outcast and an alien, and should be dealt with accordingly. Also the person who splashes about like a mislaid whale and flaps out leaving his watery wake to fluster the next comer. Who wouldn't be snorty at finding the tub one-third full of milky water, with a dreary washrag floating about in it, or a hairknot, with a buuch of hairpins sticking in it, afloat on the edge of the lavatory? Morning manners are always bad, always have been bad, but perhaps we might do a little toward improving them even if it were breakfasting alone when the mood was too bad or staying up all night and prolonging the genial manner of the mellower hours? Anyway try to make It a bit easier for the children. – By Angelo Patri, 1923

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

Etiquette and 20th C. Mom Shaming

“Mere conventions, mere formal ceremonies, do not indicate good manners. Good manners are the result of an unselfish desire to avoid annoying others and to give pleasure to one’s associates.” – Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1912 

You may be happy in the thought that you are progressive. You are interested in everything which can help the world along. You study political economy; you believe in equal rights: you are a good economical housekeeper; you are a cultured woman; and you take an active part in all movements which tend toward social betterment. But what part are you taking in the bringing up of your children? American children have the reputation abroad of appalling ill manners. It is almost universally merited. 

On board a large ocean liner (the passenger list composed of many nationalities) four children at a table in the dining room were noticeable for their bad breeding. They were handsome children, well dressed and carefully groomed. But they laughed loudly, stared at neighboring tables, made audible comments upon people, whispered and pointed and giggled, until some of the other passengers called the attention of the head steward to their annoying peculiarities, and they were requested to behave themselves in a seemly manner. 

Governesses and Tutors for Them, but Mother’s Training Was Lacking 

These children were from America, and the most offensive of the four was the twelve-year-old daughter of an American banker. They had been given governesses, tutors, schooling and travel benefits, but they had never received the refined training of a wise mother. Otherwise, they could not have shown such vulgar and offensive traits. Children are born mere hungry little animals. They have no way of knowing what is good taste, and what is kind, and what is graceful and agreeable, unless they are taught by their elders. 

All refined manners are things of growth, from the animal state to the higher human state. It has been a thing of slow evolution. Our remote ancestors all ate ravenously and used their hands to tear food into morsels. They smacked their lips, and made loud sounds and drank noisily. They flung their limbs about ungracefully and picked their teeth with thorns and slivers, and they did not hesitate to slap and bite and kick one another when angry, as animals do. 

Gradually an idea dawned upon these more highly developed creatures that there was such a thing as behavior, and that it was something for which to strive—something better than mere impulse. So through eons of time, good manners developed, and the more delicate and gracious the manners, the farther away the man is from the purely animal state. Mere conventions, mere formal ceremonies, do not indicate good manners. Good manners are the result of an unselfish desire to avoid annoying others and to give pleasure to one’s associates. 

Children should be taught these things from the time they are able to sit upon a mother’s knee. They should be taught that their hands are not to pull and tear the mother’s hair or gown or slap her face or otherwise be offensive. A little dog can be taught that he must not jump on people and put his paws on their laps; it requires a very short time to train the average puppy in this manner. So a small child can he taught to be gentle if the mother cares to give the time and effort. And as the child soon understands language it can be trained by tender, sweet counsels to show courtesy in all the little daily matters of life. It is the habit of most American children to dispute with their elders and flatly to contradict in argument. In European countries such a thing is almost unknown. 

It’s the Duty of Parents to Correct Faults in Contrary Children 

American children COMMAND their parents to fetch and carry objects for pleasure and rarely say thank you unless reminded. It is an easy matter to teach a small child to say “Pardon me, but I think you have made a mistake,” where the child is confident, to an elder or a companion who has made a mistake in relating some incident. Every child has a right to express its opinion.  That is the way childish minds expand. But when they say, “That’s no such thing.” “No, you didn’t, either,” and the parent allows the flat contradiction to pass as a proof of the child’s smartness, then a great American evil is being countenanced and abetted. 

American children are rarely taught to listen respectfully to their elders. They whistle, sing and interrupt, and walk away in the midst of conversation without making apology. Boys sit in the presence of older people who stand; they rush into and out of a room where there is conversation or music, with no apology, and usually unrebuked. Proper attitudes of body, proper position of growing young limbs, proper handling of table utensils, the retirement to the private room for use of toothpick or attention to the person in any way—these are a few of the many things which it is the mother’s duty to teach her children early and continually. 

Mother Can Easily Teach the Great Value of Good Manners 

Any woman, however poor and humble, can instruct her children to be gentle mannered, courteous, and refined in voice and deportment if she realizes the value of good manners in the world. Good manners, without education, will pass many a man and woman through the world and into good society; but education without good manners will only enlarge a human being’s opportunity to he offensive to his fellow men.– Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1912

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

Children’s Social Etiquette Education

Any attempt at overdressing is at once frowned upon by wealthy mothers of today, and it would surprise many a poor mother to see the garments that the rich children, whose inheritances are matters of almost national gossip, wear habitually. Plainness, when it does not mean ugliness, is what is insisted upon! 

Their Dress and Deportment - Work Time and Playtime - Childish Manners and Development

The small child of today begins her social education when she is six or eight years old by going to the juvenile dancing or gymnasium class. A most successful Swedish teacher in New York, who has the names of many prospective little millionaires on her books, says that she endeavors to teach her small charges that they must strive to do as she instructs because they are gentlewomen, and that being gentlewomen, they cannot possibly be guilty of the many breaches of manners and decorum that are all too often indulged in by heedless childhood. 

At the gymnasium, a little bloomer suit of white Henrietta or cashmere or mohair is worn, with white stockings and white canvas rubber-soled shoes. Boys and girls stand side by side and learn the same exercises, and the nursery maids stand outside and follow the lesson throughout, so that they may intelligently aid the little pupils in practice at home. The dancing class is a part of the regulation gymnasium curriculum, aud such of the little folks whose parents desire it are taught solo dances, which really bring out quite a little of the child's personality.

At an entertainment where children undertook all of the performance, one little girl appeared in a dance and chorus which did not take very well, and so was not encored. At its conclusion she betook herself to her mother's box and watched the part in which her cousin appeared. This was wildly encored, and the mother feared that her small daughter's feelings might be hurt. But the little one smiled and said: "What do you think, mother; they made Maisie's class do their dance three times over. I guess they did not do it quite right the first time, and so they had to do it over again. 

Very quickly do the youngsters nowadays appreciate what is good form in dress and other matters. Any attempt at overdressing is at once frowned upon by wealthy mothers of today, and it would surprise many a poor mother to see the garments that the rich children, whose inheritances are matters of almost national gossip, wear habitually. Plainness, when it does not mean ugliness, is what is insisted upon. 

For the dancing school the favored style is a fine lingerie frock, with delicately tinted or white hair ribbon, and sometimes a sash. Either white or black silk stockings aud black patent leather slippers are worn, colored footwear being considered in very poor taste. Colored silk stockings or slips are permitted only to girls who have seen at least a dozen summers: they are supposed to find no place whatsoever in the wardrobe of her younger sister. – Los Angeles Herald, 1906

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

Praising Halloween Etiquette

1950's ‘Trick or Treaters’ – If children will be saying “trick or treat” make sure they also say, “please” and “thank you.”
And how does one manage kids with sensory issues at Halloween? The best way to prepare a child who is on the spectrum (ASD) for Halloween is to first ask them if they want to do it. They may not want to ‘trick or treat’ but they may want to still be involved in having a costume and being there to receive ‘trick or treaters’ as opposed to door knocking. Make sure you purchase a costume ahead of time to ensure that they get used to the feeling of the fabric and walking in the costume. Also consider buy a costume with a mask so if they decide they don’t want to get into costume they may still decide to wear a mask. If they decide they do want to ‘trick or treat’ then there are a couple of things you can do to help ensure they are properly supported. Social stories are a great way to begin and you can either write your own or at least support the idea of ‘trick or treat’ in reality by planning a route on paper together and then pacing it out before the big night. -  tips from BrisbaneKids.com.au

Word of Praise

Dear Editor: A word of praise for the smaller children is, in my opinion, never out of place; in fact, praise would be given anyone should he or she merit it. Therefore, I think the children who took part in the Halloween Art Contest sponsored by the Healdsburg Rotary Club and the Healdsburg Chamber of Commerce, should be commended and praised for their good manners and behavior during the contest. 

I was with them a great part of the time, so I know they were great. On Halloween night there were well over 100 children that stopped at our house for “trick or treat.” Each one said “thank you” as they left. So I for one have nothing but a word of praise for Healdsburg's well behaved children. They deserve it. –R.L. Whitwell to the Healdsburg Tribune, Enterprise and Scimitar, 1955

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

Etiquette and a Willful Child

 A person of tact can always distract the child's attention from its own obstinacy, and in a few moments lead it gently 'round to submission. 

Breaking the Child’s Will

No art is so useful in the management of young children (nor is any art so neglected) as that of avoiding direct collision. The grand blunder which almost all parents and nursemaids commit is, that when the child takes up a whim against doing what he is wanted to do—will not eat his bread and butter, will not go out, will not come to lessons, etc.,— they, so to speak, lay hold of his hind leg, and drag him to his duties; whereas a person of tact can always distract the child's attention from its own obstinacy, and in a few moments lead it gently 'round to submission. 

We know that many persons would think it wrong not to break down the child’s self-will by main force, to come to battle with it, and show him that he is the weaker vessel; but our conviction is that such struggles only tend to make his self-will more robust. If you can skillfully contrive to lay the dispute aside for a few minutes, and hitch his thoughts off the excitement of the contest, ten to one, he will give in quite cheerfully; and this is far better for him than tears and punishment. — Red Bluff Independent, 1874

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

Etiquette and Parenting

There are none so ready as young children to assume airs of equality; and if they are allowed to treat one class of superiors in age and character disrespectfully, they will soon use the privilege universally.

If parents allow their children to talk to them, and to the grown persons in the family, in the same style in which they address each other, it will be in vain to hope for the courtesy of manner and tone which good breeding demands in the general intercourse of society. In a large family, where the elder children are grown up, and the younger are small, it is important to require the latter to treat the elder in some sense as superiors. 

There are none so ready as young children to assume airs of equality; and if they are allowed to treat one class of superiors in age and character disrespectfully, they will soon use the privilege universally. This is the reason, why the youngest children of a family are most apt to be pert, forward, and unmannerly. — From American Woman's Home, by Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe

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

Neglected Etiquette in Homes

When the children are small they take father and mother as the example to follow, and what they see in the impressionable age is what they will copy as the correct line of conduct in later years

A Woman's Viewpoint in 1913, 
of  
What to Do and How 

Perhaps the most neglected feature in the whole curriculm of etiquette is the courtesy due our own home folks. The saying that “familiarity breeds contempt” is exemplified in too many American homes by the manners of the inmates —one toward another. The parents are largely responsible. 

When the children are small they take father and mother as the example to follow, and what they see in the impressionable age is what they will copy as the correct line of conduct in later years. It therefore behooves father and mother to exert toward each other the same gracious courtesy and consideration that marked their honeymoon days. 

When the growing son sees his father retain his seat when mother enters the room, he will follow suit and never think of rising and offering a chair to mother or sisters. If father permits his wife to wait on him at table, seeing that he is served first and letting her own meal grow cold in order that the appetite of the head of the family may be quickly appeased, the boy will feel that he, too, being a male animal, should be accorded the same deference. 

On the other hand, the wife who fails in graciously acknowledging, by a word or a smile, the little courtesies of her husband, is setting an example of bad manners and selfishness to the daughter, who will feel that it is only her due to be waited on by the opposite sex. A good plan is to keep the same set of manners for the home as prevail outside of it.— From "The Hostess," in the Sacramento Union, 1913

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

Etiquette and "Mother's Secret"

He looks angelic, but were his manners as assured and correct as those of a grown man?

I once knew a lady whose son, a little lad of ten, was the admiration of everyone for his beautiful manners. While he was perfectly simple, frank and boyish, his manners were as assured and correct as those of a grown man. His mother could send him in a carriage alone to the station to bring a lady guest from the station, certain that he would give her every needful attention. He would take the checks, care for the baggage and bring her to the house with every courtesy. And always when visitors were at his home, he did his little share of entertaining them. He was quick to wait upon them and to show them every respect, and, though he was not forward, he was ready to converse with them if they seem so inclined.

"How do you manage it? What course of training do you pursue?" People used to inquire. "Well," I heard his mother answer, laughingly, at one time, "for one thing I never snubbed him. He has no idea that there are people in the world who do not like boys. He supposes that everybody is as friendly as himself. Then I have always brought them up to take care of me, and to be polite to me, and I am as careful to be considerate and courteous to him as I am to his father. So he never has to be put on his good manners; they are the habit of his life. I think that is all about there is to it." —From American Youth, 1893

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

Etiquette and Manners at Home

Good manners shouldn't be shed, like tight collars and irritating shoes, when the family is sheltered beneath its roof.

There are many books published on “Social Etiquette,” “Polite Form of Public Society,” and “The Ethics of Smart Society,” all conducing to the highly polished manners and conversation of men and women when associating together as "company." Yes, it's “company manners” and “company talk” that are made much of in printed volumes, large and small, cheap and expensive in price.

In comparison, the output concerning “Home Manners,” “Domestic Politeness,” and “Family Courtesy,” is startlingly small. Perhaps this scarcity of elucidation of conjugal and parental and filial courtesy, in print, may be held accountable for a large share of the lack of good home manners – since this lack of kind and gentle treatment of others is so seriously apparent in the large majority of homes.

Even when bad home manners are not at all abusive, they are tinged with a certain unkindness that blurs a moral perception of each member of the family. This tends to a certain mental laxity that bodes evil for the citizenship.

How much more important then, is domestic courtesy then the ethics of smart society to a standard of responsible municipal government! Bad home manners conduce to unhappiness and crime. Unhappiness and crime are conditions of all the people.

Polite forms of smart society conduce to the polish and glitter of a part of the people, the comparatively small part known as the wealthy and aristocratic. But, even this small part that has use for, and practices, the ethics of smart society is more or less tinctured with the unhappiness and crime that accrues from bad manners in its homes.

Dean Hole said, in a magazine, that he once rebuked a woman because her children were ill-behaved when he visited the home. “Lor' bless you, sir," replied this woman, boys and young 'uns must have some place where they can enjoy themselves.”

Clearly, this woman felt that polite language and gentleness toward others were species of cruel restraint, that had no free-to-all place, in the happiest home. Apparently she believed that good manners should be shed, like tight collars and irritating shoes, when the family was sheltered beneath its roof.

There are scores of folks like the children of this woman. They don't enjoy good manners. They delight in freedom from a sense of being made to behave by the other fellow who demands the half-way, right of way, out in the open. They take that freedom in the home. Since each member of the family is apt to take this freedom at the same time, trouble may be predicted.

The larger part of matrimonial dissension, including divorce, is due to the bad manners of husbands and wives in homes. A discourtesy, a challenging criticism, an ironical retort – and the row begins! Then there are rows and rows that develop into mutual bitterness of spirit and estrangement.

Max O'Rell tales of a man saying to him: “Brown is a most peculiar and finicky chap. He takes his hat off to his wife when he meets her in the street. He turns over the pages of music when she plays on the piano for him. Just as if she were a stranger.”

There's not a bit of doubt that Brown showered this kind of “peculiar”treatment upon the girl while courting her. Indeed, "the man" would have dubbed Brown an ordinary fool had he not lavished pleasant attentions upon the girl. Provided Brown wanted to win the girl as his wife, and the wedding was proof that he did. But when married, "the man" seemed to count Brown as a good deal of an oddity for being as courteous to his wife as to the girl he courted.

Frederick Leighton relates that a man entered a hotel parlor hastily and rather rudely brushed against a woman, so that his cuff button caught in her hair. He scowled, and in doing so glanced into the woman's face. Quickly he took on a gracious attitude and said: “I beg your pardon, madam; I thought you were my wife, and I was in a hurry.”

Alas for the domestic atmosphere of that man and his nuptial mate, since his policy is that any kind of manners will do for a wife! However, by the same token, their wives a-plenty who consider a courtesy misplaced when bestowed upon her husband when there's no favor to be gained through “such a bother.”

When there's a millennium of good manners in the home, unhappiness and evil will dim into the great minority. — by Dorothy Fenimore, 1906

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

Etiquette and Mother’s Ingenuity

Mom sees a need for table etiquette lessons, and fills the need herself, in a very creative way... 

Teaching table manners to the children was once a common sight in homes throughout the world.

Children’s Table Manners

“After a long illness in the hospital I returned home to find that my children's table manners had suffered a complete demoralization. They ‘gobbled,’ used knife and fork indiscriminately and always awkwardly, regarded their spoons as shovels and, in short, were perfect little savages. 

“In order to remedy this quickly I started a series of ‘company luncheons,’ at which I was the hostess and the children the guests. I set the table as prettily as possible and made funny little place cards. The children played up delightedly, took grown-up names and even washed their hands without a murmur.

Teaching children in Canada, 1898

“We made a set of simple rules: The guests who behaved perfectly received three pieces of candy, the guests who made only one mistake received one piece of candy, while any unfortunate guest who committed three breaches of table etiquette received no candy at all. 

“Questions on table manners were in order at any time, to be answered by the hostess. I chose dishes for these luncheons which are not always easy to eat elegantly, and I was very happy to see how quickly the children improved in table manners and other manners as well, for our ‘company luncheons’ seemed to help genial courtesy quite wonderfully. 

“The best of it was that there was no nagging nor cross words. It was all good fun, and my four youngsters can now go anywhere and eat anything, and mother has the proud consciousness that they will always appear to good advantage.” – Contributed to the Los Angeles Herald by J. Appleton, June, 1910

This 1950 "training implement for infants" had a "swivel" feature that I am sure kept toddlers entertained, but probably did little to teach the child to move the spoon in the swivel motion himself, or herself.


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

Erasmus of Rotterdam ~ The Father of Children's Etiquette Instructors

The bronze statue of Erasmus, in Rotterdam. Created by Hendrick de Keyser in 1622, it replaced a stone statue from 1557.

A Christian philosopher and educator, Erasmus of Rotterdam, was considered the greatest classical scholar of the northern Humanist of Renaissance, determined that manners were best if instilled in children at an early age. His book, “On Civility in Children” (c.1530), considered to be the first treatise in Western Europe on the moral and practical education of children, was a bestseller for over three centuries. The following are from his teachings:

1. “Turn away when spitting lest your saliva fall on someone. If anything purulent falls on the ground, it should be trodden upon, lest it nauseate someone.” 
2. “To lick greasy fingers or to wipe them on your coat is impolite. It is better to use the table cloth or the serviette.” 
3. “Some people put their hands in the dishes the moment they have sat down. Wolves do that.” 
4. “You should not offer your handkerchief to anyone unless it has been freshly washed. Nor is it seemly, after wiping your nose, to spread out your handkerchief and peer into it as if pearl and rubies might have fallen out of your head.” 
5. “If you cannot swallow a piece of food, turn around discreetly and throw it somewhere.”
6. “Retain the wind by compressing the belly.” 
7. “Do not be afraid of vomiting if you must; for it is not vomiting but holding the vomit in your throat that is foul.” 
8. “Do not move back and forth on your chair. Whoever does that gives the impression of constantly breaking or trying to break wind.”       

This popular etiquette book by Erasmus, ultimately became a standard textbook used in schools.

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

Early 20th C. Manners for Children

Boys, never let your mother carry coal, beat rugs, or go to the store when she is tired, if you can do the work for her.

There are people who think that courtesy is merely a matter of form. The manners of such people are not worth much. Sincere good manners require that a person be helpful and kind at all times, which means that good manners are closely associated with one's daily work. If you would cultivate the better kind of courtesy, there are many opportunities to do so in your own home life.

Boys, never let your mother carry coal, beat rugs, or go to the store when she is tired, if you can do the work for her. Show your appreciation of her by drying the dishes in the evening, so that she may get an opportunity to rest. Help your mother when she is tired.

Girls, you can at least make the beds, straighten the living room, and, in the evening, wash the dishes even if you are attending school. On Saturday and Sunday you have your opportunity to learn to cook and clean and to give your mother a little play time. Sometimes your mother wants to be so very kind to you that she tells you you need not help. The next time she does it, remember your manners and fall to work.

Remember your manners and fall to work.

Outsiders judge you largely by the way you treat your mother. Do not impose your work on your little sisters and brothers. Always do more than they do, as you are bigger than they; and help them out when they are tired. You can never expect them to be considerate if you do not set a good example. Work quickly and carefully and quietly. If you put your best efforts into your task, you will find yourself enjoying it.

A thorough piece of work, no matter what it may be, is always a great satisfaction to the doer. Aside from this, you should endeavor to do your work cheerfully, because your mother is very little benefited by your labor if you are cross and disagreeable. Remember too that the skill and ease with which you accomplish the small home tasks are the best possible preparation for the big tasks you will meet later on.

Each of you may make a list of things that you might do when you go home to-day that would help your mother.

Take care of the things you handle while you are working around the house. Do not let the baby's doll be broken, or your sister's book be mislaid. Do not throw into the waste paper basket the composition over which your brother has toiled hard, even though he has left it very untidily on the table. Your good breeding shows nowhere more markedly than in the care you take of the things other people value. Always thank a member of your family for any favor as graciously as you would an outsider, and remember that "Please" is a helpful word anywhere. Don't say "Thanks"; it sounds ungracious. "Many thanks, Mother" or "Thank you, Fred" are much pleasanter expressions of appreciation.

PROBLEMS: WHO WILL SOLVE THEM?

1. Suppose that a child has never formed the habit of greeting his family with a smiling "Good morning!" — how can he learn to do it? What may make it difficult at first? How can he overcome this difficulty?

2. Each of you may make a list of things that you might do when you go home to-day that would help your mother. How can you get into the habit of helping her every day?

3. What do you think of beginning now a manners drive? You must do the planning for slogans, posters, scenes, plays, tags. These all help to arouse interest and to fix facts.

Here are two suggestions for manners slogans. Can you add others?

Life is not so short but that there is always time enough for courtesy. — Emerson.

Family intimacy should never make brothers and sisters forget to be polite to each other. — Silvia Pellico

By the Faculty of South Philadelphia High School for Girls 1922

 🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia

Etiquette and Grade Schools

“Table manners are not an overriding priority. 'Adults care whether a child talks with food in his mouth,' Mr. Scott said, 'but the child's peers don't - unless the food happens to shoot out of the kid's mouth and land on somebody else's clothes.'”

FROM THE AGE of 4, most children can recite the litany of good table manners: 

• I won't talk with my mouth full. 
• I won't play with my food. 
• I won't put my elbows - or feet - on the table.

“Are they really models of comportment, or instead smaller versions of Bluto, the food-throwing churl in the movie 'Animal House'?”

But do children actually mind their manners, especially away from home? How do they function in the school lunchroom? Are they really models of comportment, or instead smaller versions of Bluto, the food-throwing churl in the movie ''Animal House''?

In 2011, China Set Classes in Good Manners for Schoolchildren 

The Chinese government is making schoolchildren take classes in what it calls “civilised manners.” The education ministry says the aim is to enhance the ethical quality of the nation and China's influence abroad. Before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, authorities launched campaigns against things like spitting and littering to avoid offending foreign visitors.  

The new classes range from basic table manners to the art of holding conversations and delivering speeches. According to the education ministry's website, teaching courtesy should combine "the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation" and "the salutary achievements of civilizations in other parts of the world". Detailed guidelines have been published, with classes tailored to the age of the child.

Chinese children will also be taught to respect their elders and the customs of ethnic minorities

Among key lessons for primary school students are using courteous language, observing traffic rules and respecting the elderly. Children a little older will be learning about phone and correspondence etiquette, how to dress properly and how to hold polite conversations with both Chinese and foreigners. High school students are expected to master the etiquette of debate and delivering speeches, but they should also know how to keep a proper distance from other people when they are queuing or using a lift. "The campaign is very necessary for our society now," Xin Tao, vice director of the National Assessment of Education Quality, told the Global Times. 

Younger children will be taught about traffic rules, table manners and using courteous language

Abigail Mawdsley, from the BBC's Asia Pacific desk, says the campaign reflect two things. Firstly, they signify a concern - with the waning of communist ideology - about the values underpinning society. But they also show an awareness that the behaviour of citizens affects a country's image, she says, and that commanding global respect involves more than simple economic and military might. Authorities have shown concern in the past about the habits and behaviour of some of their citizens.  But the goal now appears to be to drill manners into people from an early age.

In 1988, visits to four New York City schools and interviews with several principals around the country revealed that for most students, lunch is, first, a chance to be convivial, and only second a time to eat. To encourage a merry but civilized lunchtime, and keep the noise level tolerable, schools enforced an assortment of rules. Depending on the age of the student body, the kind of restrictions and the location, rules varied from Draconian to nonexistent. As for manners, they improved in direct proportion to age.

The strictest rules were for the very young. At Manhattan's Trinity School, Public School 3 and the T.A.G. School (for talented and gifted elementary-school students), all the children had to follow the same standards of etiquette - don't yell and don't leave the table until excused. But each school ran its lunchroom differently.

Children need limits and need to know the consequences of their behavior.

On the block adjacent to the T.A.G. School, in East Harlem on East 109th Street, a panhandler hustled for change. At midday, idle men passed time drinking from whisky bottles badly disguised in paper bags. Amid this harsh scene, T.A.G. was a strictly run, yet cheerful oasis for 265 children, all of whom had I.Q.'s of 130 and above. Uniformed guards stood watch at the entryways and directed visitors down the school's brightly decorated corridors. Classes ranged from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade.

''I believe children need structure to learn, whether it's math or respect for themselves and others,'' said Renee LaCorbiniere, director of T.A.G. and ''Miss LaCorbiniere'' to her students. ''They need limits, and they need to know the consequences of their behavior.''

At T.A.G., the rules were spelled out. Lunchroom behavior was based on a commendation system. Alternating, Miss LaCorbiniere and Carmen V. Pizarro, assistant director, supervised the lunchroom and gave commendations for good behavior. Three times a year, the classroom with the most of them won an ice-cream or pizza party.

Siobhan Carter, 8 years old, briskly itemized the rules. ''Don't fight, don't run. When they blow the whistle, you can't talk and if you talk, you have to stand against the wall and you can't go out to play.''

If a class cleaned its table (everyone had a seat assignment), it gets a commendation, but if a student ran from the cafeteria, the class forfeited it. Asked why students generally behaved so well, Natasha Jones, Natasha Lewis and Aixa Moran, fourth-grade students, chorused, ''The party is what makes you clean up!''

If students understand the basic rules, some also know the subtle niceties of etiquette. “My mother and father make me eat nicely,'” Natasha Jones said.

If students understood the basic rules at the time, some also knew the subtle niceties of etiquette. ''My mother and father make me eat nicely,'' Natasha Jones said. ''They say: 'Don't waste money. Eat what you're given because some people don't have food. Don't talk with your mouth full, and don't chew with your mouth open.''

Niceties, however, sometimes perish in the face of unrestrained playfulness. In line to choose between grilled cheese sandwiches and empanadas, one little girl grabbed 12 ketchup packets, laughed at her greed and happily foisted six off on a friend. One 4-year-old eating a melted cheese sandwich separated the bread, pulling out the cheese and licking the long, gooey strands off her fingertips.
  

Shrill whistle blasts told the children they could put on coats and queue up to go outside to play. Others remained behind, eagerly eating and talking - not necessarily simultaneously. Ifetayo Abdus-Salam, 4, held a bunch of grapes aloft and with Bacchanalian relish licked the bottom grape and then bit it off with glee.

At P.S. 3, in Greenwich Village, students called the principal by his first name, uniformed security guards were absent and lunchroom rules were comparatively lax. The principal, John Melser, wanted the kindergarteners and first-graders served at the table, so they wouldn't have to wait in line or grapple with trays. ''The Board of Health insists that the serving of food be done by the official servers, and not by the teachers,'' Mr. Melser explained, ''Since the servers couldn't possibly serve the little ones at the table and the rest of the student body standing in line, we're back to the line.''

In 1988, visits to four New York City schools and interviews with several principals around the country revealed that for most students, lunch is, first, a chance to be convivial, and only second a time to eat.

CHILDREN were not to sit on tables, stand on seats or leave tables littered. Teachers either patroled the room or sat with their students. The major concern was keeping the noise level down.

''Noise breeds confusion,'' observed Steve Scott, a kindergarten and first-grade teacher. ''That's why they can't kneel on the chairs, because that makes them edgy and lunch becomes just another nervous event of hurry, hurry, hurry.''

To keep the children calm, teachers asked them to lower their voices and stay in their seats. Table manners were not an overriding priority. ''Adults care whether a child talks with food in his mouth,'' Mr. Scott said, ''but the child's peers don't - unless the food happens to shoot out of the kid's mouth and land on somebody else's clothes.''

From the NY Times, 1988 and BBC Asia Pacific, 2011

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