Instill Manners Early at Home

Children usually do not intend to be rude, but the very novelty of a situation sometimes embarrasses and so surprises them that they do not know what to do. Consequently “acting smart” is their refuge, and too often it appears at the table. A little home practice would save all this humiliation for both mother and child.

“Making Manners”

“Mary, Betty has such nice manners. I wish my children would behave like her when we go out to dine!” How often we hear a mother comment thus on some little girl who is “conspicuous” for her ladylike ways. Indeed, manners are to be valued as much in children as in grown people. These very little ones are later to be the grown people, and if their manners are to become a part of their everyday life, these graces and little courtesies must be encouraged to grow up with them, so they will reach perfection in later years. 

I have in mind a mother who has made a special point of good manners in bringing up her six-year-old daughter. This does not mean that she wants the little one to have an affected society suavity, but that she wants her to reflect the charm and refinement of the household. The mother demands company manners every day in the week. She serves the dinner each night in the dining room rather than amid the informality of the breakfast room or kitchen nook, although she does her own work and it means extra household tasks. 

This may seem a trivial step in manner making, but children respond more quickly to example and surroundings than they do to preaching and instructions. Dinner in the dining room, in this case, means that extra pains are taken to have the meal pleasant and attractive, and everyone is expected to help maintain this atmosphere. The mother may still wear her house dress, but it is sure to be spick and span and the little six-year-old is dressed late in the afternoon after her nap, ready for the evening meal. Her manners are practiced with the rest of the family, and she learns that politeness is not to be put on when going out to dine or having company, but is to be worn on all occasions.

Children usually do not intend to be rude, but the very novelty of a situation sometimes embarrasses and so surprises them that they do not know what to do. Consequently “acting smart” is their refuge, and too often it appears at the table. A little home practice would save all this humiliation for both mother and child. Eating in the dining room is just one means of teaching children that certain conventions help to make things pleasantly and that good breeding makes people welcome. As mothers train their children, so will they reflect that training as they go out into the world, and when they meet praise because of their conduct and manners, they will be grateful to her for the trouble she has taken. —Mill Valley Record, 1926

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

Japanese Etiquette and Manners

As with the French, the Japanese believe in promoting good manners, social skills and etiquette at an early age.— “Little girls of 10 will one see here, whose finish of breeding would have awakened the envy of a Duchess at the Court of Louis XIV at Versailles. Female servants one will encounter, at a dinner in the house of a Japanese gentleman, whose grace, charm and dignity are the quintessence of lady-like refinement.”— Meme fromThe Free Thought Project.com

Etiquette Has Become Second Nature In the Land of the Mikado

Given a highly imitative people like the Japanese, and let one undeviating standard be set before them. Then, generation after generation, will no change be witnessed. The standard will act like that of the French academy on the language of France. Now, at home, in America, we have 50 standards of manners—the reserved and reticent New England manners, the slap you on the back far western manners, the demagogue’s manners, the drummer’s manners, the cut and dried business man’s manners—these and dozens of others might be specified. And it must be admitted by even the most patriotic, that the man who should try to model his deportment on all these schools at once would come to a somewhat mixed result. Nothing of this bewildering complexity has ever existed in Japan. 

From Mikado at the top to cooly at the bottom of the social scale, one undeviating standard has always prevailed. Originally an importation from China, it has been elaborated through centuries of study of the most elaborate ceremonial etiquette ‘til at last, through constant practice, it has become second nature. No one ever saw anything else, ever dreamed of anything else. There was one way of saluting a superior, one of saluting an equal, one of saluting an inferior, and one’s head would have been cut off had he departed from it. No Japanese child ever saw a drummer—saw only prostrate artisans saluting samurai, samurai saluting daimios, daimios saluting shoguns. The whole ceremonial became organized into them as much as their instinctive habits into our setters and pointers, perhaps the best mannered of our population. 

Little girls of 10 will one see here, whose finish of breeding would have awakened the envy of a Duchess at the Court of Louis XIV at Versailles. Female servants one will encounter at a dinner in the house of a Japanese gentleman whose grace, charm and dignity are the quintessence of lady-like  refinement. “Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle. ” The simple fact is that the young woman of 20 has been doing the thing for a thousand years. — Christian Register, 1894

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