Courtesy in Children by Grace D. Goodwin

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jun 20, 1912

Courtesy in Children

By Grace D. Goodwin

GRACE D. GOODWIN

PEOPLE of other countries criticize with great severity, and with justice as well, we are forced to admit, the behavior of American children. They are said to be the worst-mannered children of civilization, and we are pointed to the obedient German boy or the gentle Japanese girl by way of contrast. As a matter of fact, we all know scores of little gentlemen and ladies, products of refined homes and careful training. These are the children who are not permitted to make themselves terrors in public, and who are therefore overlooked in the generalization. Upon such children as these the reputation of America is to rest, if we are not to be known as a nation of boors. This is the oak of the future, and it seems a far call from that to the acorn of the present, which consists in requesting your boy to stand when his mother enters the room, to lift his hat as soon as he ceases to wear an elastic band under his chin, and to avoid using the coarse tones and coarser talk of the street children. Each thing is so very small, the conflict over it is sometimes so disproportionately large, that it is well to remember the magnitude of the result.

A brilliant preacher recently left the city pulpit which he had occupied but a short time, because, as one of his parishioners expressed it, “he had never learned little boy manners.” At the table he was uncouth, in conversation abrupt, in general manner awkward and brusque, in personal habits careless, yet in the pulpit he was a man of force, sincerity, and intellectual ability. An old lady of ninety, when told of his failure, remarked, “If he had a mother, she is the one to blame.”

It is a truism to say that the incitement to courtesy in a child is courteous treatment of that child. An ill-mannered little guest in the household of a woman of many cares was won to much better behavior in two weeks’ time by the application of this principle, and that without a word of fault-finding.

There are people who disdain to say, “Excuse me,” having hurt a child; who take child service for granted, omitting the “Thank you” of recognition; there is here and there a pastor who overlooks the timid greeting of a child who saw him at dinner or tea when the minister was a welcome guest in the lad’s home.

The boy remembers, pulls off his cap, and is amazed to see no response in the face he thought he knew. Then he goes home and says, defiantly:— “Mama, why should I take off my hat to Dr. B—? he doesn’t ever look at me.” The answer to this is difficult, to say the least.

Coarse tones are more of a problem, for boys learn from one another, and the healthy young animal exults in noise. It was wisely managed by the aunt of a bright lad of ten who had been making the day hideous with unearthly sounds, to the great discomfort of guests on the piazza. The opportunity for which the aunt was waiting came quickly; a lady near her said, “Why do you permit Francis to make such vulgar noises?”

The wise woman put her hand upon the shoulder of the listening boy, who beyond everything aspired to be a man. “Francis is only a child,” she explained, “and he does not realize how silly and ill-mannered this seems to grown people. When he outgrows his babyhood, he will not think of doing this.”

Francis flushed and fled; his aunt told me she never heard the sounds repeated.

Sometimes children seem simply perverse, when there is something more behind.

A well-trained small boy of eight was walking beside his father, who noticed with surprise that the child never lifted his hat, although he had been carefully instructed. Inquiry, suggestion, command, failed to reveal the secret of the obstinate discourtesy. At last it came out that his school-teacher, a learned man, but a man whose half-Indian blood was to blame for his wholly barbaric manners, had forbidden the children in his class to greet him or one another in the conventional fashion. The small boy, told at home to obey his teacher, was in a very hard place, and was doing the best he could. Luckily for him and his future, he had a wise father, who saved punishment until he could gage the need for it with accuracy.

One thing more. It is a mistake to expect children to conform perfectly to drawing-room conventions; too much “manners” is as bad as too little “manners.” The ordinary polite usages of the home should be the rule for every member of the household, great or small, and from great to small as well as vice versa.