Etiquette Teacher of 1900

Me? Pretensions? Why, I never! Shrewd, maybe. But pretentious? Ha!~ “A woman of cultivation and social opportunities has been earning money in a community where her pretensions were celebrated, says a writer in the Philadelphia Press”

Teaching Manners...Shrewd Device of a Woman of Society for Making Money!

Children learning table setting etiquette in the late 1800s

A woman of cultivation and social opportunities has been earning money in a community where her pretensions were celebrated, says a writer in the Philadelphia Press.

She first published an explanatory card in the local press, setting forth what she intended to do. She proposed giving a course of familiar drawing -room talks on manners; the etiquette of the street, of church, of letter writing, of paying visits, of various social functions and of every-day life at home and at school.

Those were to be primarily for children and for young people, simply because, although this was not stated, she was sure that the parents would be too proud to confess their own need of them.

This part was managed by each ticket admitting not only a juvenile, but one adult friend. The lecturer knew that these elders would be glad to receive instruction that was not apparently aimed at them. She did not reckon without her host. Mothers were quite ready to send their little ones and to accompany them.
                                            
The course of procedure was according to the following program: A question box was placed on the hall table, in which slips of paper were thrust bearing inquiries on any point of etiquette or fashion on which the anonymous guest desired enlightenment. 

These were read and answered at the next weekly meeting. Then the elegant, though very quietly dressed, and queenly looking speaker, began her simple dissertation on current blunders and the proper performance of the subject in hand.

She touched upon trifles that even the best books on social usages do not make clear, and gave new ideas of many of the season's caprices in style. With these were what might be called "standards" of conduct, painstakingly outlined for both boys and girls, so that each might clearly understand what Mrs. Grundy would have a right to expect under most circumstances that could occur.

For example, some of the heads touched upon under manners in church were the position In the pew, ungainly attitudes, listening to the sermon, kneeling, whispering and laughing, attention to strangers, staring at late comers, turning the head, etc...

Special to boys: Assistance with wraps, carrying prayer books, etc... These lectures were rendered sprightly by the manner of delivery, and were interspersed with illustrations and amusing stories. – The Philadelphia Press, 1900

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

Early 1920's Table Etiquette for Children

           

1922 School Picture Day

Table Manners and the Meaning of 'Goop'

 

You probably thought "goop" was just a term for some sort of glop or sticky substance. The term not only means those things, but in 1922 it also meant a rude and ill-mannered boorish person. It was coined by Gelett Burgess, an American humorist, in the early 1900's:

Table Manners  

"The Goops they lick their fingers, 

And the Goops they lick their knives; 

They spill their broth on the tablecloth — 

Oh, they lead disgusting lives! 

The Goops they talk while eating, 

And loud and fast they chew; 

And that is why I'm glad that I 

Am not a Goop — are you?" 

Don't be a Goop! 

Which of your friends have good manners at the table? What pleases you most in their manners? Is it the way in which they handle their food? Their positions at the table? Their conversation at the table? 

Eating is not a very attractive process, but in these busy days, meal time affords one of the few opportunities we have for meeting and greeting our friends. For that reason, the unattractive part of eating should be made as inconspicuous as possible, so that the social part of the meal can be emphasized. If you handle your silver and consume your food just as your neighbors do, your manner of eating is unnoticed, and you can dine without embarrassment and be welcome at any table. 

If, however, your table manners are unusual and peculiar, you at once become conspicuous; you embarrass your hostess; and your peculiarities may be so revolting as to take away the appetite and upset the conversation of others at the table. This being the case, you find yourself unwelcome, perhaps ignored and laughed at, because of your clumsy and unpleasant maneuvers. Consequently, it is necessary to know and to follow the customs that have been accepted by those who have learned best how to be agreeable to, and considerate of, their fellow men. 

First of all, be prompt at your meals. It is very trying to the person who planned the meal to have people come in late. If there are guests, allow them to enter first, and in any case, if those partaking of the meal come from the same room, the men and boys stand aside for the women to pass first, except when arrangement has been made for people to enter with partners. At the table, remain standing until all have arrived, or until the mother, or the hostess, or whoever is at the head of the table, gives the signal for sitting. It is a pleasant courtesy for a man to pull back the chair of the woman next to him, and then push it in toward the table for her as she sits down. 

Do not begin to eat until all have been served. The silver at your place is usually arranged in the order in which you will use it—beginning at the outside. If soup is served, fill your spoon away from you, always, not toward you. If this rule is observed, there is less danger of letting drops fall on the tablecloth or on your clothes. Soup should always be eaten from the side of the spoon, never from the front.

If you notice people while they eat, you can see how much less awkward it is to eat from the side than to push your spoon straight into your mouth, as though you meant to swallow it. See that you put the soup into your mouth quietly. Never suck it from the spoon with a noise; a noisy soup eater is most distressing to his neighbors. When you put down your spoon, if soup plates are used, leave the spoon in the plate. If bouillon cups are used instead, never leave the spoon in the cup, but put it in the saucer.

When fish is served, it is eaten by means of the fork only, except in those rather rare cases where a fish knife is provided. Fish bones may be removed from the mouth by means of the fork, or by the fingers. Often the latter method is a safer way of getting the bones to your plate. You should, as far as possible, avoid taking the bones into your mouth; and, when removing any, should shield your mouth with your napkin.

When the main course is served, you may be asked your preference in regard to the cuts of meat. If so, and if you have a preference, express it. If you are not asked, take what is served to you without comment. If the vegetables are placed on the table, help to pass them. If the table is set correctly, you will always find a tablespoon beside the vegetable dish, and it is your part in picking up the dish, to put the spoon into it, and pass the dish to your neighbor. In case your neighbor is occupied, it may be more convenient and less conspicuous to help yourself first. 

Never reach across the table or in front of a person for anything you desire, but ask the person nearest to pass the article. Try to anticipate the needs of your guests, so as to offer them what they need before they are obliged to ask. Always take bread with your fingers, never with your fork. The same is true of olives or radishes, or any food which is not provided with its own spoon or fork. Such dishes are ordinarily those that contain food which you eat from your fingers. Always use the butter knife provided to help yourself to butter. It is exceedingly bad form to help yourself from any dish with your own individual silver.

“At one time it was considered good form to leave a little food on the plate. Our lessons in thrift during the war, however, taught us that it is better to take no more than we want...”

In cutting your meat, be careful not to hold your knife and fork as weapons. The knife should be held easily in the right hand, with the forefinger running along the back of the blade near the handle. The fork, in the left hand, should be held with the prongs down, and the forefinger extended along the handle. Keep your arms close to your sides — never with the elbows out. The latter position produces an awkward appearance and frequently causes real annoyance and inconvenience to your neighbors. Never cut more than one mouthful of meat at a time. It is decidedly out of place to cut up all of your meat at once.

When you have cut off a small piece, the general rule is to rest your knife across your plate, transfer your fork to your right hand, with the prongs up, and so pick up and eat with your fork what has been cut. (It is permissible, however, to keep the fork in the left hand, prongs down, and so eat your meat. This method prevails in England.)
Vegetables should be eaten with the fork whenever possible. If a vegetable is served in liquid or nearly liquid form, it may be eaten with a spoon. When not in use, the spoon should be allowed to rest in the dish with which it belongs. It should never be put back on the tablecloth. 

Just so, with the knife and fork; after they have been picked up, they should never rest anywhere but on the plate. They should not be put back on the tablecloth, or allowed to lean against the plate. For one thing, they are no longer perfectly clean, and it is unsanitary to spread the germs from your hands and mouth to the tablecloth. Moreover, leaning them against your plate puts them in your way, and is likely to cause accidents. 

In passing your plate for a second helping, leave your knife and fork side by side on your plate — do not remove them. When you have finished, put your knife and fork in this same position. 

Never spread a whole piece of bread at one time at the table. Break the piece in halves, and if one half is more than two or three small mouthfuls, break it again, and spread just one little piece at a time. If a bread and butter plate is provided, your bread, of course, belongs there. If none is provided, rest your bread on your dinner plate, if possible. If that is too crowded, all but the piece you have buttered may rest on the tablecloth. The buttered piece must rest on your plate.

At one time it was considered good form to leave a little food on the plate. Our lessons in thrift during the war, however, taught us that it is better to take no more than we want, and then to eat what is set before us, simply avoiding any impression of scraping the plate. A hostess is more flattered by a normally good appetite than by one which is too dainty. The latter makes her feel that you do not like her food.

– From "Everyday Manners for American Boys and Girls" , 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 of the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Teaching Children Etiquette and Manners in the Early 20th C.

“The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.”~ Fred Astaire

“As the Twig is Bent”

Every one theoretically admits the importance of early training. It is demonstrated in the animal and the vegetable kingdoms, wherever organic life unfolds and grows; and that the human child is no exception is promptly recognized in theory, however fatally practice ignores it.

Not that parents mean to ignore it; but there is a “happy-go-lucky” impression that somehow “he will come out all right;” that “as he gets older, his own good sense will assert itself,” and so on. Happily, this is partly true. A native good disposition and good sense saves many a child from the ruin which an unwise course of training has done its best to precipitate. The wonder is that they “turn out" as well as they do. Perhaps providence, in visiting its judgments, is lenient to the young and inexperienced parents, themselves undisciplined; to the helpless child, at the mercy of his blind guides.

There is too much negative, too little positive, in child-training; too much querulous reiteration of “don't,” too little intelligent teaching how to do. Little children like to be “shown how;” they are fascinated with the games and gifts of the kindergarten, which aims to teach something, not to repress everything. Children are delighted to learn little polite phrases; to make a bow; to hold a fork daintily; to offer little courtesies, and to receive a smiling approbation. They would rather do things prettily than not. They are not “contrary,” exceptional cases of hereditary ugliness aside. 

They are apt pupils, whether their tutor be a philosopher or a fool. And if a faulty example be a child's most constant and influential teacher, what wonder that the lessons, well-learned, are put in practice? And just then, if you listen, you will hear some one issue the emphatic but vacuous command, “Don't!” And the baby doesn't, for the space of a few seconds; after which, unable to get any new suggestions out of the idea-less instructions given him, he proceeds to do the same thing over, only to be again commanded to desist, a spanking for “disobedience” this time varying the monotony of the universal prohibition.

The profane poll-parrot is not a more startling witness to the character of its surroundings than the “terrible infant,” whose rude snatchings, pert contradictions, and glib slang phrases are sure to be most effectively “shown off” in the presence of visitors. It is of little use to affect grieved surprise, or stern reprobation, when one's children are merely exhibiting their daily discipline.

Most parents feel keenly the embarrassment of having the infant misbehave so inopportunely, and they are apt to offer a tacit apology and a vague self-defense by sharply reprimanding the child in words that are meant to give the visitor the idea that they–the parents–never heard or saw such conduct before, and are now frozen with amazement. The nonchalant or incredulous or impish way in which the children receive these reproofs only confirms the suspicion that such scenes have been frequent, and the discipline attending them has been inconsequent.

One parent I have heard acknowledge the truth of the matter. An elderly clergyman was his guest, and the four-year-old daughter of the house was entertaining the “grandpa” with a toy puzzle, which he fumbled with in vain, unable to put it together or to take it apart. Impatient at last, the little girl hastily snatched it from his hand with a childish growl of contempt, and proceeded to show him the trick, saying, with an airy mingling of criticism and condescension, "By Jove! your name is Dennis; you are not in it!” The old gentleman paused, instinctively prepared to hear the usual "Why, daughter! papa is astonished to hear his little girl," etc, etc., after the fashion of the parental hypocrite. But this candid young father met the dignified eyes squarely, and said promptly, "I'm sorry, Doctor, but there's no use denying it; she is just giving me away." He had the sense to recognize his own teaching, the honesty to admit it. Whether he has the discretion to reform his methods remains to be seen.

For right here is another point: that people think it is "cute” for a little child to say and do things that in a child a few years older would be most unattractively rude. But they must reflect that this same cute little child will soon be a few years older, and will carry into that riper age the fixed habits that are forming now; and it will not be so easy a task to transform the child's manners as it is to dress him in a larger suit of clothes.

A choice rose was grafted upon a wild,thorny stock, and planted beside a veranda trellis. The owner watched it carefully for a year or so, cutting down the rank shoots of the wild stock as they sprang aggressively from the root, allowing the grafted branch to grow in full luxuriance, bearing carmine clusters that filled the garden with spicy odor. The next spring an ignorant gardener pruned away the branches, cutting down the slenderest and leaving what to his unpracticed eye were the most desirable, because the thriftiest, shoots; and when the time of blossoms came, nothing appeared but the ragged petals of the wild thorn.

So, in "the rosebud garden of girls"--or boys. If the choice graft of cultured manners (for it is a graft on the sturdy but wayward stock of human nature) is left to be choked out by the rank, wild growth of impulse, or if by some flagrant error in example and discipline it is practically cut down at the main branch, what can the careless trainer expect? He may weep to find no velvet-petaled rose when he comes to look for it; but he has no right to blame the rose-bush, nor can he, at this late day, hide the tact of his blundering pruning by righteously affirming that he is "perfectly astonished." His neighbors, who have quietly noted the methods pursued in his kindergarten, are not in the least surprised.

Another resource for escaping blame is that of explaining that the children “learn these things at school.” Presumably they do not mean from the teachers. It is “from the other children,” who seem to be a most injurious class of society.

It is their influence which makes our children so rude and so ungrammatical; and, strangely enough, though these other children never dine with our children, so subtle and far-reaching is their baleful influence that our children's defective manners at the table are directly traceable to the same evil source.

Granted, a measure of truth in the charge; for large mirthfulness and large imitation lead children to do things “just for fun,” which all the time they know better than to persist in. But, as a fact, demonstrated by observation, a very small percentage of the children who are habituated to correct behavior at home are ever seriously affected by outside influences. A superficial effect may show in little things; but such lapses of speech or manner are transient, and in no degree control the development of the child when his home training is irreproachable. On the other hand, the efforts of an untiring teacher, laboring five hours a day to teach correct language and enunciation, may be of little permanent value, when the remaining hours of the day are spent in a home where the English grammar hourly meets a violent death. 

And what is true of grammar is equally true of morals and manners. The school and society may be measurably influential; but the home casts the deciding vote. And when people note the manners--good or bad--of your boys and girls, they do not ask, “What school do they attend?” “What children do they associate with?” but, “Whose children are they?”

Would you have them mannerly? Teach them; by precept, certainly; but above all things, by example. – From Agnes H. Morton's 1911 “Etiquette.”

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