p. 553 | MANNERS AND MANNER by Emma C. Hewitt

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 9, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 35.

MANNERS AND MANNER.

By Emma C. Hewitt

BY EMMA C. HEWITT.

It has been a long time, boys, since you and I have had a talk together, hasn't it? But there are one or two little things I feel inspired to speak about, and one is politeness. Now I see you look disgusted, and I hear some of you go so far as to say that you don't want to prance and mince like a French dancing master. But that has nothing to do with what I am thinking of.

When you read of self-made men, and the wonderful way in which they have been enabled to battle against circumstances of faulty education and origin, you feel that all such things are accessories, and if the man "has the true stuff in him," that is all that is necessary. Now don't understand me to be saying anything against a self-made man, for there is no human being I honor more, but I quite agree with the immortal Holmes when he shows that it would have been so much easier for the self-made man to rise to eminence if he had not had the lack of home and school education to contend against.

Plenty of you have all the facilities for this education, but you neglect it and put on a manner that is intended to impress the beholder with your ability—your "smartness," in plain terms—but which only serves to show you up in an unpleasant light; and an impression once made by the boy is very often remembered in the man.

Nowhere should manners be more carefully practiced than in your own homes. "Why," exclaimed a young lady once, "I never saw anyone like your brother. He's just as polite to you as he is to anyone else. He always takes off his hat when he comes in or goes out, just the same as if you were any other girl." The girl thus addressed looked at the speaker in wide-eyed surprise. She had always been used to exchanging the courtesies of life with this same brother. "Why shouldn't he be as polite to me as to anyone else?" she asked. (Truly! why shouldn't he?) "Oh, I don't know! Boys are not, that's all!"

Now, boys, I don't think that's a very good record for you as "boys," is it? And yet I am compelled to attest to the truth of the statement.

Now for manner. It does not hurt a boy a bit, nor make him any the less a man, to know how to make a graceful bow; and many have been the times when a young man would have given all he possessed to appear at ease in the presence of someone whose worldly position made it desirable for him to appear at his best.

While, then, polish is not absolutely necessary to success in some lines of life, it is an emollient that very materially aids the wheels of life to revolve smoothly. And I speak the truth when I say that more than one good position has been lost through some awkwardness or a feeling of diffidence born of a sense of lack of polish when among those whose whole bearing betrayed the daily exercise of the finer courtesies of life.—Christian Work.