MANNERS AND COURTESY
_A child should always say what's true,
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table,
At least as far as he is able._
--_A Child's Garden of Verse. Robert Louis Stevenson, 1895
In ancient days in England, manners and courtesy, manly exercises,
music and singing, knowledge of precedency and rank, heraldry and
ability to carve, were much more important elements in education
than Latin and philosophy. Children were sent to school, and placed
in great men's houses to learn courtesy and the formalities of high
life.
Of all the accomplishments and studies of the Squire as recounted
by Chaucer in the _Canterbury Tales_, but one would now be taught
in English college--music. Of all which were taught, courtesy was
deemed the most important.
"Aristotle the Philosopher
this worthye sayinge writ
That manners in a chylde
are more requisit
Than playinge on instrumentes
and other vayne pleasure;
For virtuous manners
is a most precious treasure."
The importance given to outward forms of courtesy was a natural
result of the domination for centuries of the laws of chivalry
and rules of heraldry. But they were something more than outward
show. Emerson says, "The forms of politeness universally express
benevolence in a superlative degree." They certainly developed a
regard for others which is evinced in its highest and best type in
the character of what we term a gentleman and gentlewoman.
It is impossible to overestimate the value these laws of etiquette,
these conventions of customs had at a time when neighborhood life
was the whole outside world. Without them life would have proved
unendurable. Even savage nations and tribes have felt in their
isolated lives the need of some conventions, which with them assume
the form of taboos, superstitious observances, and religious
restrictions.
The laws of courtesy had much influence upon the development of
the character of the colonial child. Domestic life lacked many of
the comforts of to-day, but save in formality it did not differ
in essential elements from our own home life. Everything in the
community was made to tend to the preservation of relations of
civility; this is plainly shown by the laws. Modern historians
have been wont to wax jocose over the accounts of law-suits for
slander, scandal-monging, name-calling, lying, etc., which may be
found in colonial court records. Astonishingly petty seem many of
the charges; even the calling of degrading nicknames, making of wry
faces, jeering, and "finger-sticking" were fined and punished. But
all this rigidity tended to a preservation of peace. The child who
saw a man fined for lying, who beheld another set in the stocks for
calling his neighbor ill names, or repeating scandalous assertions,
grew up with a definite knowledge of the wickedness and danger of
lying, and a wholesome regard for the proprieties of life. These
sentiments may not have made him a better man, but they certainly
made him a more endurable one.
The child of colonial days had but little connection with, little
knowledge of, the world at large. He probably never had seen a map
of the world, and if he had, he didn't understand it. Foreign news
there was none, in our present sense. Of special English events he
might occasionally learn, months after they had happened; but never
any details nor any ordinary happenings. European information was of
the scantiest and rarest kind; knowledge of the result of a war or
a vast disaster, like the Lisbon earthquake, might come. From the
other great continents came nothing.
Nor was his knowledge of his own land extended. There was nothing to
interest him in the newsletter, even if he read it. He cared nothing
for the other colonies, he knew little of other towns. If he lived
in a seaport, he doubtless heard from the sailors on the wharves
tales of adventure and romantic interest, and he heard from his
elders details of trade, both of foreign and native ports.
The boy, therefore, grew up with his life revolving in a small
circle; the girl's was still smaller. It had its advantages and its
serious disadvantages. It developed an extraordinarily noble and
pure type of neighborliness, but it did not foster a general broad
love of humanity. Perhaps those conditions developed types which
were fitted to receive and absorb gradually the more extended views
of life which came through the wider extent of vision, which has
been brought to us by newspapers, by steam, and by electricity. At
any rate children were serenely content, for they were unconscious.
[Illustration: The Pepperell Children]
Among early printed English books are many containing rules of
courtesy and behavior. Many of these and manuscripts on kindred
topics were carefully reprinted in 1868 by the _Early English_
_Text Society_ of Great Britain. Among these are: _The Babees Book_;
_The Lytill Children's Lytil Boke_; _The Boke of Nurture, 1577_; _The
Boke of Curtasye, 1460_; _The Schole of Vertue, 1557_. From those days
till the present, similar books have been written and printed, and
form a history of domestic manners.
It certainly conveys an idea of the demeanor of children of colonial
days to read what was enjoined upon them in a little book of
etiquette which was apparently widely circulated, and doubtless
carefully read. Instructions as to behavior at the table run thus:--
"Never sit down at the table till asked, and after the blessing.
Ask for nothing; tarry till it be offered thee. Speak not. Bite
not thy bread but break it. Take salt only with a clean knife.
Dip not the meat in the same. Hold not thy knife upright but
sloping, and lay it down at right hand of plate with blade on
plate. Look not earnestly at any other that is eating. When
moderately satisfied leave the table. Sing not, hum not, wriggle
not. Spit no where in the room but in the corner, and--"
But I will pursue the quotation no further, nor discover other
eighteenth-century pronenesses painfully revealed in lurid light in
other detailed "Don'ts."
It is evident that the ancient child was prone to eat as did Dr.
Samuel Johnson, hotly, avidly, with strange loud eager champings;
he was enjoined to more moderation:--
"Eat not too fast nor with Greedy Behavior. Eat not vastly but
moderately. Make not a noise with thy Tongue, Mouth, Lips, or
Breath in Thy Eating and Drinking. Smell not of thy Meat; nor
put it to Thy Nose; turn it not the other side upward on Thy
Plate."
[Illustration: THE SCHOOL OF MANNERS. OR RULES for Childrens
Behaviour:
At Church, at Home, at Table, in Company, in Di[f.]cour[f.]e, at
School, abroad, and among Boys. With [f.]ome other [f.]hort and mixt
Precepts.
By the Author of the _Engli[f.]h Exerci[f.]es_.
The Fourth Edition.
_LONDON._
Printed for _Tho. Cockerill_, at the Three Legs and Bible again[f.]t
Grocers-Hall in the _Poultrey_, 1701.
Title-page of _The School of Manners_]
In many households in the new world children could not be seated
at the table, even after the blessing had been asked. They stood
through the entire meal. Sometimes they had a standing place and
plate or trencher; at other boards they stood behind the grown folk
and took whatever food was handed to them. This must have been in
families of low social station and meagre house furnishings. In
many homes they sat or stood at a side-table, and trencher in hand,
ran over to the great table for their supplies. A certain formality
existed at the table of more fashionable folk. Children were given
a few drops of wine in which to drink the health of their elders.
In one family the formula was, "Health to papa and mamma, health
to brothers and sisters, health to all my friends." In another,
the father's health only was named. Sometimes the presence of
grandparents at the table was the only occasion when children joined
in health-drinking.
The little book teaches good listening:--
"When any speak to thee, stand up. Say not I have heard it
before. Never endeavour to help him out if he tell it not right.
Snigger not; never question the Truth of it."
The child is enjoined minutely as to his behavior at school: to take
off his hat at entering, and bow to the teacher; to rise up and bow
at the entrance of any stranger; to "bawl not in speaking"; to "walk
not cheek by jole," but fall respectfully behind and always "give
the Wall to Superiors."
[Illustration: (9)
17. Bite not thy bread, but break it, but not with [f.]lovenly
Fingers, nor with the [f.]ame wherewith thou take[f.]t up thy meat.
18. Dip not thy Meat in the Sawce.
19. Take not [f.]alt with a greazy Knife.
20. Spit not, cough not, nor blow thy No[f.]e at Table if it may be
avoided; but if there be nece[f.][f]ity, do it a[f.]ide, and without
much noi[f.]e.
21. Lean not thy Elbow on the Table, or on the back of thy Chair.
22. Stuff not thy mouth [f.]o as to fill thy Cheeks; be content with
[f.]maller Mouthfuls.
23. Blow not thy Meat, but with Patience wait till it be cool.
24. Sup not Broth at the Table, but eat it with a Spoon.
Page of _The School of Manners_]
The young student's passage from his home to his school should be as
decorous as his demeanor at either terminus:--
"Run not Hastily in the Street, nor go too Slowly. Wag not to
and fro, nor use any Antick Postures either of thy Head, Hands,
Feet or Body. Throw not aught on the Street, as Dirt or Stones.
If thou meetest the scholars of any other School jeer not nor
affront them, but show them love and respect and quietly let
them pass along."
Boys took a good deal from their preceptors, and took it patiently
and respectfully; but I can well imagine the roar of disgust with
which even a much-hampered, eighteenth-century schoolboy read the
instructions to show love and respect to the boys of a rival school
and not to jeer or fire stones at them.
This book of manners was reprinted in Worcester by Isaiah Thomas
in 1787. I have seen an earlier edition, called _The School of
Manners_, which was published in London in 1701. The title-page
and a page of the precepts are here reproduced. The directions in
these books of etiquette are plainly copied from a famous book
entitled _Youths' Behaviour, or Decency in Conversation Amongst
Men_, a book unsurpassed in the seventeenth century as an epitome of
contemporary manners, and held in such esteem that it ran through
eleven editions in less than forty years after its first appearance.
Not the least remarkable thing about this volume was the fact that
the first edition in English was by an "ingeniose Spark" not then
eight years of age, one Francis Hawkins, who rendered it from "the
French of grave persons." The bookseller begs the reader to "connive
at the stile," on the plea that it was "wrought by an uncouth and
rough file of one in green years." Green years! we cannot fancy
sober young Francis as ever green or as anything but a sere and
prematurely withered leaf. We can see him in sad colored attire,
carefully made quill pen in hand, seated at desk and standish,
his poor little shrunken legs hanging pitifully down, inditing on
foolscap with precision and elegance his pompous precepts. After
all he only translated these maxims; hence, perhaps, was the reason
that he managed to live to grow up. For translating did not tax his
"intellectuals" as would have composition.
The _Youths' Behaviour_ contained many rules and instructions worded
from still older books on courtesy, such as _The Babees Book_,
and _The Boke of Nurture_, and traces of those hackneyed rules
lingered even in the etiquette books of Isaiah Thomas, long after
the house-furnishings and household conditions indicated by them
and sometimes necessitated by them had become as obsolete as the
formal duties of the squire's sons, "the younkers of account, youths
of good houses, and young gentlemen henxmen," for whom they had
originally been written. Let us believe that the habits pointed out
by such rules were obsolete also. I cannot think, for instance, that
the boy born after our Revolutionary war was in the habit of casting
poultry and meat bones under dining tables, even though he is so
seriously enjoined not to do so. This rule is a survivor from the
earthen floors and dirty ways of old England.
A famous book of rules of etiquette, entitled _The Mirror of
Compliments_, was printed in 1635 in England, and as late as 1795
many pages of it were reprinted in America by Thomas under the title
_A New Academy of Compliments_. The teachings in this book were
fearfully and wonderfully polite. This is the sort of thing enjoined
upon children and grown folk as correct phrases to be exchanged on
the subject of breaking bread together:--
"Sir, you shall oblige me very much if you will do me the honour
to take my poor dinner with me.
"Sir, you are too courteous and persuasive to be refused and
therefore I shall trouble you.
"Sir, pray excuse your bad entertainment at the present dinner
and another time we will endeavour to make you amends.
"Truly, Sir, it has been very good, without any defect, and
needs no excuse."
The child who sought to be mannerly certainly must have felt rather
discouraged at the prospect laid before him. These superfluities of
politeness were equalled by the absurdities of restraint. It would
certainly have been a study of facial expression to see the average
schoolboy when he read this dictum, "It is a wilde and rude thing to
lean upon ones elbow."
In Brinsley's _Grammar Schoole_, written in 1612, he enumerates the
"bookes to bee first learned of children." First were "abcies" and
primers, then the Psalms in metre, then the Testament.
"Then if any other require any little booke meet to enter
Children, the _Schoole of Virtue_ is one of the Principall,
and easiest for the first enterers being full of precepts of
ciuilitie.... And after the _Schoole of Good Manners_, leading
the child as by the hand, in the way of all good manners."
The constant reading of these books, and the persistent reprinting
of their formal rules of behavior, may have tended to conserve the
old-fashioned deportment of children which has been so lamented
by aged grumblers and lovers of the good old times. It was
certainly natural that children should be affected by the regard
for etiquette, the distinctions of social position which they saw
heeded all around them, and in all departments of life. No man
could enlist in the Massachusetts Cavalry unless he had a certain
amount of property. Even boys in college had their names placed in
the catalogues, not by classes, years, scholarship, or alphabetical
order, but by the dignity and wealth of their family and social
position; and a college boy at Harvard had to give the baluster
side of the staircase to any one who was his social superior. Of
course the careful "seating of the meeting" was simply an evidence
of this regard of rank and station.
[Illustration: Thomas Aston Coffin, Three Years Old]
It was a profound distance between Mr. and Goodman. Mistress and
Goody marked a distinction as positive if not as great as between a
duchess and a milkmaid. Unmarried women and girls, if deemed worthy
any title at all, were not termed Miss, but were also Mrs. Rev. Mr.
Tompson wrote a funeral tribute to a little girl of six, entitled,
"A Neighbour's Tears dropt on ye Grave of an amiable Virgin; a
pleasant Plant cut down in the blooming of her Spring, viz: Mrs.
Rebecka Sewall August ye 4th, 1710." Cotton Mather wrote of "Mrs.
Sarah Gerrish, a very beautiful and ingenious damsel seven years of
age." Miss was not exactly a term of reproach, but it was not one
of respect. It denoted childishness, flippancy, lack of character,
and was not applied in public to children of dignified families. In
_Evelina_ the vulgar cousins, the Branghtons, call the heroine Miss.
"Lord! Miss, never mind that!" "Aunt has told you all hant she,
Miss?"
A certain regard for formality obtained even in very humble
households. The childhood of David and John Brainerd, born
respectively in 1718 and 1720, in East Haddam, Connecticut, who
later in life were missionaries to the New Jersey Indians, has
been written by a kinsman. They were nurtured under the influences
of Connecticut Puritanism, in a simple New England home. Their
biographer writes of their rearing:--
"A boy was early taught a profound respect for his parents,
teachers, and guardians, and implicit prompt obedience. If
he undertook to rebel his will was broken by persistent and
adequate punishment. He was taught that it was a sin to find
fault with his meals, his apparel, his tasks or his lot in life.
Courtesy was enjoined as a duty. He must be silent among his
superiors. If addressed by older persons he must respond with
a bow. He was to bow as he entered and left the school, and
to every man and woman, old or young, rich or poor, black or
white, whom he met on the road. Special punishment was visited
on him if he failed to show respect for the aged, the poor, the
colored, or to any persons whatever whom God had visited with
infirmities."
All children in godly households were taught personal consideration
of the old and afflicted, a consideration which lasted till our
present days of organized charities. As a lesson of patience and
kindness, read Mrs. Silsbee's account of the blind piano tuner in
Salem. He was employed in many households and ever treated with
marked attention. His tuning instrument had to be placed for him on
each piano-screw by some member of the family. He was paid, given
cake and wine, then humored by being given a tangled skein of silk
to unravel and thus show his dexterity, and finally led tenderly
home.
Sir Francis Doyle says, "It is the intention of the Almighty that
there should exist for a certain time between childhood and manhood,
the natural production known as a boy." This natural production
existed two centuries ago as well as to-day. Though children were
certainly subdued and silent in the presence of older folk, still
they were boys and girls, not machine-like models of perfection. We
know of their turbulence in church; and boys in colonial days robbed
orchards, and played ball in the streets, and tore down gates, and
frightened horses, and threw stones with as much vim and violence
as if they had been born in the nineteenth century. Mather, in his
_Vindication of New England_, referring to the charge of injuring
King's Chapel, shows us Boston schoolboys in much the same mischief
that schoolboys have been in since:--
"All the mischief done is the breaking of a few Quarels of Glass
by idle Boys, who if discover'd had been chastis'd by their
own Parents. They have built their Chapel in a Publick burying
place, next adjoining a great Free School, where the Boyes
(having gotten to play) may, some by Accident, some in Frolick,
and some perhaps in Revenge for disturbing their Relatives'
Graves by the Foundation of that Building, have broken a few
Quarels of the Windows."
Children did not always pose either as models of decorum or
propriety in their relations with each other. In a little book
called _The Village School_, we read of their beating and kicking
each other, and that there was one bleeding nose. Worse yet, when
the girls went forth to gather "daisies and butter-flowers," the
ungallant boys kicked the girls "to make them pipe."