Etiquette for Little Folks

Chapter 23: GOOD BREEDING.

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About This Book

A practical handbook of rules and maxims teaching young children proper conduct in daily settings. It presents concise dos and don'ts for behavior at home, at table, among peers, in school, at church, and in public, emphasizing reverence toward parents and elders, cleanliness, silence, temperance, and respectful speech. The guidance covers specific actions such as washing before meals, waiting to be served, refraining from interrupting, and showing consideration for servants and others, alongside exhortations to patience, modesty, and gentle correction of companions. Instructions are organized by context and framed as direct rules aimed at forming habitual polite behavior.

GOOD BREEDING.

Observe the best and most well-bred of the French people; how agreeably they insinuate little civilities in their conversation. They think it so essential that they call an honest and a civil man by the same name, of “honnete homme;” and the Romans called civility, “humanitas,” as thinking it inseparable from humanity: and depend upon it, that your reputation and success will, in a great measure, depend upon the degree of good breeding of which you are master.

From what has been said, I conclude with the observation, that gentleness of manners, with firmness of mind, is a short but full description of human perfection, on this side of religious and moral duties.