How Children Learn Ease of Manner

Good manners aren’t only for when “company” comes to visit. ~The mother was stressing the old idea of “company manners,” and expecting the children to put on culture just as they put on clothes for the dinner party. And because they didn't she was deeply grieved and disappointed.

A mother remarked the other day in the course of a conversation on child discipline, “I don't see why it is that my children always act worse when we have guests than at any other time. I'm sure it isn't because they haven't been instructed how to behave.”

Now this mother was perfectly sincere in her remark, yet her own phrasing contains the secret of her distress over her children's behavior. Would a child learn to play the piano by being instructed if he didn't practice playing every day? Yet that mother was expecting just as improbable a performance in behavior. She was stressing the old idea of “company manners,” and expecting the children to put on culture just as they put on clothes for the dinner party. And because they didn't she was deeply grieved and disappointed.

The reason why children of this type act worse when there are guests than they do ordinarily is because of strain and nervous tension. In the mother's anxiety to have affairs move smoothly she has held out threats as to what will happen if all the last minute “Don'ts” aren't observed, and the result has been to create an unnatural condition that is confusing and disastrous to poise and courtesy.

But aside from the mother's embarrassment over slips of etiquette and behavior, this idea of “putting on manners” is very unwise training for children. They gradually learn to act on artificial motives and lose sight of the genuine and vital character traits that are worth while and lasting.

Just the idea of alluding to the various articles of table appointment as “company silver” and “guest linen,” and so on, through all the china and glassware, suggests to the child a feeling of stiffness, and an atmosphere formal and conventional, though he does not analyze it in just those terms.

Why not use the good dishes and linen and silverware occasionally for just the home folks? Then daughter Lois will not cause a panic when there are guests by piping up, “Oh, goody, we have the fruit in the best hand-painted bowl.” If the little ones become accustomed every day to what is good enough for guests, a great deal of strain for both parents and children is bound to be eliminated.

Right in line with this follows the fact that the place to start preparing the child in “company manners” is the first day he sits in his high chair to eat a meal. There is no need for a tot even this age to throw his spoon and cracker on the floor continually, or to upset his broth or porridge. He may as well learn right then not to stand up in his chair, not to put his face down in his plate, and not to scream for what he can’t have. This much at least can then be omitted from the “instructions” when the Browns come over to dine a few years later.

When mother is alone and playing with the babies she can teach them much by pretending visitors. They may come in and call on her and advance and take her hand. It will become natural in a very short time. A mother who includes good manners and polite behavior in the everyday home life will never have reason to force courtesy upon her children.– By Edith Lochridge Reid, 1923

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

Dame Curtsey on Table Manners

From earliest childhood one should be taught to sit erect at table; not to reach forward to catch a mouthful of food; not to eat fast; to have the seat at just the right distance from the table; not to put one's elbows on the table during the progress of a meal; not to toy with napkin-ring, fork, or spoon, but keep the hands quietly in the lap when not occupied in eating.

THERE is but one way to judge people by a casual glance, and that is by their knowledge of etiquette, or, as one of more gifted tongue than the writer puts it, “by the several politenesses of the time.” The little niceties of social usage should not be things apart from the every-day life, but be so moulded into the very existence that they are not realized, but are as natural as the air breathed without effort.

There should be no such thing as “company manners.” From earliest childhood one should be taught to sit erect at table; not to reach forward to catch a mouthful of food; not to eat fast; to have the seat at just the right distance from the table; not to put one's elbows on the table during the progress of a meal; not to toy with napkin-ring, fork, or spoon, but keep the hands quietly in the lap when not occupied in eating.

A man should always wait until his hostess is seated, whether that individual is his mother, sister, wife, or some grand dame of fashion. One of the greatest sins of the age is the lack of deference paid by the average man to the women of his household. The sons of the family follow closely in the footsteps of the father, and the first thing criticised by visitors from the Continent is the lack of breeding in our young Americans, girls as well as boys.

It seems dreadful to have to tell a lad of seventeen that he must rise and offer a seat to an elderly woman who stands in a crowded car, that he must see that his mother is seated before he places himself in the most comfortable chair in the room and buries his head in a book, but this is a digression from table manners. Must it be said that napkins are laid across the lap and never tucked under the chin, bib fashion? If one has to wear a bib, he should not accept invitations to dine away from home.

When a meal is finished in a café or hotel, the napkin is never folded but laid as it was used on the table beside the plate. The same rule applies when at a repast in the home of a friend, if it is for one occasion only. If one is a guest in the house, a clean napkin should not be expected at every meal in the average household, so it may be carefully folded and laid beside the plate. It is the rule in most families to have a fresh napkin at dinner, which is the most ceremonious meal of the day, and partaken of with the most leisure.

In the same category, let it here be chronicled that toothpicks are never passed at the table, and never used in public. One might just as well take out false teeth and cleanse them, or manicure one's fingers; yet these questions are asked so often that an emphatic denial seems necessary here.—From Ellye Howell Glover’s Dame Curtsey’s Book of Etiquette, 1916

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

Manners Due Equally to Family

Oh, these “company manners!” They are the ruination of a household. They cannot always be put on and off at will. Traces of the every day discord and lack of harmony will manifest themselves through the affectation of all the mere “company manners” one can assume. Habitual politeness and kindness and gentleness should be the unwavering rule in every house, even on “Blue Mondays.”
— photo source, Pinterest 

Good Manners at Home

I know a woman who is always harping about “culture” and “refinement” and “etiquette,” and who does not this minute know the meaning of that old fashioned term, “good manners.” She is always regretting the lack of culture among her neighbors, and there is not one of them who is more polite than she is. I have heard her actually yell at her servants, and storm at her children, and I do not think her husband is the happiest man in the world. In society, she is a charming woman. She knows always just what to say and how to say it. I never saw a woman who could excel her in gliding across a room and sinking gracefully into a chair. 

Her little boys can tip their hats so prettily to ladies on the street; her little girls can enter a room with toes properly turned out and with the grace of little queens; and, alas! both the little boys and the little girls can be as impertinent and display the worst manners of any children I ever saw. And they literally fight among themselves. They are not taught to be polite to each other. Their mother seldom favors them with her own properly chosen words and graceful manners when they are alone with her. Discord reigns until the door bell rings and then the entire household must put on good manners. “If we don’t,” one of the children said, “we catch it when the company’s gone!” 

This is an extreme case, but do we not all have our “company manners?” Do we speak just as gently and sweetly to our children, to our husbands and wives, when we are alone with them as when in the presence of the chance caller? Do we say to a transgressing Johnnie or Katie, “Don’t do that, dear,” or, “Stop that this minute, I tell you!” Which is it? Do we say “please” and “thank you” to each other and to our servants at all times, or are these pleasing little words held in reserve with the rest of our “company manners?” Is it only in the presence of strangers that we smilingly overlook or gently chide the trifling faults of our children? 

Oh, these “company manners!” They are the ruination of a household. They cannot always be put on and off at will. Traces of the every day discord and lack of harmony will manifest themselves through the affectation of all the mere “company manners” one can assume. Habitual politeness and kindness and gentleness should be the unwavering rule in every house, even on “Blue Mondays.” — -Zenas Dane in Good Housekeeping, 1888

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

Good Manners Help Make a Home

“Have your home, every-day table, just as attractive as the one to which you invite your honored guest. It pays to exert one’s self for one’s family.” 

Courtesy Toward One’s Own Household

One thing do remember, to have your home, every-day table, just as attractive as the one to which you invite your honored guest. It pays to exert one’s self for one’s family. They never lose sight of it. Ten to one if the honored guest, tired with social courtesies, will not forget you in a day or only remember your little affair as a debt to be paid back some time. We do not under-estimate the duty of hospitality, but we do think we are more likely to err in the lack of courtesy toward our own households. Be hospitable to them, we pray, thereby some of you may entertain angels unawares.– Daily Alta, 1886

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