GIRL'S MANNERS | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 13, 1881

GIRL'S MANNERS.

If our girls greet their brothers and sisters, and perhaps even their parents, boisterously, if instead of "Good-morning," they cry, "Halloo, papa! Halloo, mamma!" and call to playmates in the same rough manner, who will be surprised if this style follows them as they grow up and appear as young ladies? Referring to this very unladylike manner and mode of address, a gentleman writes that, passing two pretty, well-dressed, stylish young ladies in the public streets, he was surprised to hear the one greet the other, "Halloo, Sid!" and the other responded, "Halloo, Tude!" to her friend's greeting; and he remarks: "It was just what two lounging young men might have said, or stable-boys, for that matter. It might not have been so much out of the way for the latter, but I confess it sounded very odd and offensive in what I supposed to be two well-bred young ladies; as much as if I had heard two beautiful, well-dressed ladies begin to swear. It was so unnatural, so out of place. It may be the 'style' for young girls or ladies to greet each other with a 'Halloo,' but I can't like or get used to it.

"These things may seem but a trifle, but they make all the difference between nice things and very common things. We usually prefer gentle, refined girls to those who are coarse and hoydenish. Girls may fall into this free and easy, unladylike habit through their brother's example; but sisters were given to refine and soften the coarser nature of their brothers. If they do not do this we shall no longer find in our sisters refined and refining companions, but the coarse ways and rough speech of young men in flounces. Is it not just as easy to imitate the graceful manner and refined speech of a lady as those of a rude uncultivated boy?" The same general rules for correct and pleasant behavior are safe for boys and girls, and ladies and gentlemen. A gentleman may entertain the highest respect for a lady, and be on the most friendly and intimate terms, but, if a true gentleman his respect will withhold him from carelessness or roughness in speech or action. And no lady who is truly refined will brook anything approaching a too familiar tone. It is, however, but just to acknowledge that a lady's manners will always fix metes and bounds of the liberty which may be offered. When boys and girls, young men and maidens, are allowed to fall into the absurdities of low, foolish, meaningless talk, it seems to dwarf them intellectually; they can find nothing of interest or importance to say, and therefore make up for sense by filling every sentence with needless exclamations, exaggerations, or misused adjectives.