Children's Manners

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 23, 1879

Children's Manners.

I HAVE a decided liking for well-behaved children, a liking positive and avowed, and should I confess here to a dislike for rude, ill-mannered ones, I would not stand alone in the feeling, though I may in the confession; for I notice the ill-bred, uncivil child is never a favorite with either his play-mates or elders, though he may stand at the head of his class, may be good-hearted, full of fun and frolic, may possess many of the requisites to make him an agreeable companion and friend, yet if he is not courteous, if he has not learned good manners, people will not like him. When I see a child making himself disagreeable to all about him, just from thoughtlessness or want of training, I say, with a half groan, "Why dos'ent his mother or sister teach him manners? It is a world of pity that he should spoil everything by his rude, uncouth, awkward ways."

Politeness has been defined as the outward expression of inner good will; but I have known people full of good will who did not know how to express it so as to please. Desiring to please and knowing how to please is two different things. It is training that changes the good will into the style of expression called politeness.

Assuming, my dear young friends, that you are unselfish and kind-hearted, which must be the foundation of all true politeness, we will throw out some hints that may serve as helps to you in the ordinary happenings of life, where, perhaps, rules may not apply.

There is a right and a wrong way of doing things; that is, the same thing may be done in such a bungling manner as to offend, or in such a nice way as to highly please. I am sure you do not wish to be offensive, when by a little thoughtfulness you may get in the habit of doing things in a pleasing way, and then, you will do them naturally without thinking about them at all.

There are certain rules in the formation of good manners that at first sight seem arbitrary, but, when looked into more closely, we find they are founded upon a basis of common sense. Many of you have heard them again and again from your careful mother, eldest sister, or family teacher, and if you remember and practice them I beg your indulgence while I talk for the benefit of those who have such busy mothers that they do not take the time to teach their children politeness, or those who have no mother to tell them the correct way of saying and doing things, or still those who have such indulgent mothers that they are blind to the clumsy, disagreeable manners of their children, and cannot see why others are annoyed by them. This sounds a little strangely, but I have an instance in my mind (and have known many such) of a little boy, who having been delicate when a child, had been unduly indulged and was simply let to grow up without training. When he came to go away to school, to make things easy and homelike, a family of cousins living near the school took him in their home. Now the children of this household had been properly trained in the courtesies of life, and this little alien had such bad manners without knowing it that he was simply laughed at. The thoughtful mother of this well-ordered home took him aside and gave him private lessons on behavior. He remembered what she told him, but wondered aloud why his own mother had not taught him these things. So, many another child has been led to wonder, on first going out from home, from the same cause. - Christian Weekly.