As Others See Us | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 23, 1883

As Others See Us.

THE Frenchman says that our impoliteness is next to heathenish. Go out into one of the suburban districts of Paris, and every little hatless gamin by the roadside will make you as courtly a bow as a dancing-master, and every bare-legged girl will dip her skirts to you with a respectful, "Bou jour, monsieur;" whereas, if you should go out over the Long Island sand-hills beyond Brooklyn, or along Boston's famous Brighton highway, ten to one the first urchin you meet would stand in your path, with his hands in his pockets, and cry, "Say, mister, where you goin'? Gimme a cent, will you?" And then a bevy of girls would giggle at you, and make slangy comments on your personal appearance.

The German says that our family life is not gentle and polite and loving, like family life in the fatherland. We have not kindness enough at home. We are too selfish, too much absorbed in our own individual interests. We have separate rooms at home. There is no great warm, comfortable family apartment, where all meet of an evening and talk and read together, and play quiet games. A sort of boarding-house coldness prevails, even between parents and children, brother and sister. The manners of the German are heart manners. He is not, as a representative national type, outwardly polished and graceful, and so he does not criticise our mere external behavior as the Englishman and the Frenchman do. But he does criticise, and justly too, the home manners of our people. He is astonished when he sees how much more affable we are to strangers than to the members of our own family circle.—Interior.