Table Manners Taught in the 1700’s

To read all of the 110 Rules of Civility copied by George Washington in school, click here

By-Paths of History

What strange rules regarding table manners were used in the training of young people in Washington’s time? When George Washington was a youth he copied down the prevailing rules of etiquette, and, as he grew older, he was guided by them. Among the hundred and ten “Rules of Civility,” as they were called, were the following:

1. Being set at meat, do not scratch, cough, or blow your nose, except there’s necessity for it. 
2. Take no salt or cut your bread with a greasy knife. 
3. If you soak bread in the sauce, let it be no more than you can put in your mouth at a time; blow not your broth at table, stay until it cools itself. 
4. Put not your meat to your mouth with your knife in your hand, neither spit forth any stones of any fruit pye upon a dish, nor cast anything under the table. 
5. Put not another bite into your mouth till the former be swallowed; let not your morsels be too big for the gowls. 
6. Cleanse not your teeth with the table cloth, napkin, fork or knife, but if others do it, let it be done with a tooth pick. 
7. Kill no vermin as fleas, ticks, lice, etc., at table in sight of others. 
8. Drink not too leisurely nor yet too hasty. Before and after drinking wipe your lips, breathe not then or ever with too great a noise. 

Table manners have changed somewhat since Washington’s time, but even in our enlightened days we occasionally find those who inhale their soup and dunk their toast. – By Guy Allison, 1944

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

Etiquette and Pilgrims' Meals

Pilgrim children usually stood at the table. Often they shared a plate. — "Willful waste brings woeful want and you may live to say, how I wish I had that crust that once I threw away." — Thomas Fuller

Pilgrim parents are strict with their children. Some of the rules sound familiar, like this one (from a book called The School of Manners) about speaking with your mouth full: 

When meat is in your mouth do not drink or speak or laugh — Dame Courtesy forbids.

But Pilgrim manners weren't always the same as ours. In their first years in America, they were too busy for regular meals. People just helped themselves right out of the cooking pot. They ate standing — in front of the fire, if the day was cold -— and then hurried off to work again.

When the family did eat together, the dinner table was often just some old boards laid on top of barrels. The cooking pot was placed in the middle, and the family gathered around.

Later, when the Pilgrims had more time —and more dishes — food was brought to the table on large, round platters called chargers. 

No one had his or her own plate. Instead, two people would share a trencher - a bowl carved or burned out of a block of wood.

A mother and father shared a trencher. Children shared, too. The Pilgrims thought that people who had their own trenchers were show-offs.

Some poor people didn't have wooden trenchers. Instead, they used pieces of stale bread as plates. They put the food on top of them, and after they ate the food, they ate the bread plates.

Almost nobody used forks. One Pilgrim, Governor John Winthrop, was given a fork as a present. It had only two times. The Pilgrims called it a "double dagger." 

They thought forks were silly. Why bother, they said, "Fingers were made before forks." —

 From "Eating the Plates" by L.R. Penner

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

George Washington’s Table Manners

First President of the United States, George Washington. Click on Washington’s name for the complete 110 “Rules of Civility” 

What rules of etiquette were thought to be of sufficient importance by Washington, that he copied them in a note book? The social status of a man or woman is usually easily determined by his observance or lack of observance of prevailing rules of etiquette. That these rules vary from time to time is indicated by the following advice given to young people in the time of George Washington. 

In a neatly written volume by our first President during the days of his youth, he copied down 110 rules by which his social standards were to be maintained. Among those rules were the following: 

1. If you soak bread in sauce let it be no more than you can put in your mouth at a time; blow not your broth at table, stay until it cools itself. 
2. Being set at meal, do not scratch, cough, or blow your nose except there’s necessity for it. 
3. Put not your meat to your mouth with your knife in your hand, neither spit forth any stones of any fruit pie upon a dish, nor cast anything under the table. 
4. Cleanse not your teeth with the table cloth, napkin, fork or knife, but if others do it, let it be done with a toothpick. 
5. Kill no vermin, as fleas, lice, ticks, etc., at table in the sight of others.
6. Drink not too leisurely, nor yet too hasty. Before and after drinking, wipe your lips. Breathe not then, or even with too great a noise. 
7. Put not another bite into your mouth till the former be swallowed; let not your morsels be too big for the jowls. 

Folks were surely limited in their operations at the dinner table during the days of Washington, weren’t they? – By Guy Allison, 1943

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