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

Table Manners of Children

Depiction of children in a class learning to set the table in the late 1800’s— “Children should be taught early to use their napkins properly, to lay them on the table without folding, to handle forks nicely, to use their knives rarely, never to mix food into great mouthfuls, to use a bit of bread in the left hand, to eat soup without “gurgling,” to drink without noise, to leave their plates tidy with knife and fork lying parallel to each other, to not leave the spoon in the tea cup, to spill none of the contents of the cup into the saucer, and hundreds of other small but important habits.”

Importance of Early Training in the Matter of Eating

The young person is to be sincerely pitied who has had no careful mother, nurse, or governess to attend to this in childhood—that golden time when learning is so easy. Men and women are judged by trifles. After a rugged backwoodsman has hewn his way to a high place in the councils of the country, or, perhaps, saved it in our hour of peril, one may well forgive him if he forgets the right way to shake hands, or doff his hat, or enter into a drawing-room. But even he will be unforgiven if his table manners are untidy or offensive. Just here the most amiable of men, Thackeray, drew a sharp line. “Oh” he sighs, “If only the dear American girls would not strip the corn of their white teeth!” and again: “How can I breakfast with five women eating with their knives! I could have stood one — but five, all at once!”

In the old times immense importance was given to the etiquette of the table, made more necessary then than now, because the service à la Russe was not in fashion, and any moment any man might be called upon to carve a roast or joint. Then, too, the easy meal was a perilous affair, to be safely consummated only by the expert. The young man of Revolutionary days was a martyr to the “handed” tea; for tea cups, buttered muffins, slices of Sally Lunn, and chipped beef or shaved ham – these all, and more, had to be taken care of upon his trembling knee. Now and then a plate would crash upon the polished floor and fill the blushing swain with confusion. 

Once, when a stranger had won the heart of the tiniest little maid of her family, and when her spirit had been sorely tried at hearing her sable nurse express doubt as to whether he was a gentleman, leaning on her father‘s knee and looking earnestly into his face she asked: “Papa, is Mr. Dawson a gentleman?” “Wait, Blossom, until I see him follow the hounds,” replied the Squire. “But Mammy Grace says she’ll know as soon as he eats an egg,” said the fairy. Sure enough, he broke a section from the shell at breakfast the next morning, and ate all the contents with a spoon from the shell itself. That settled it. He was a gentleman.

Children should be taught early to use their napkins properly, to lay them on the table without folding, to handle forks nicely, to use their knives rarely, never to mix food into great mouthfuls, to use a bit of bread in the left hand, to eat soup without “gurgling,” to drink without noise, to leave their plates tidy with knife and fork lying parallel to each other, to not leave the spoon in the tea cup, to spill none of the contents of the cup into the saucer, and hundreds of other small but important habits.—Mrs. Roger A. Pryor in The Delineator, 1895

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