The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-10-16
An Open Secret.

A writer in our household department this
week questions the possibility OF so training
family of healthy children that their manners
at the table will be good in the absence OF
company, and referring to a recent editorial
article On the subject wants to know whether
its writer speaks from experience or merely
gives vent to an untested theory. The subject
Is an important one in itself, and it involves
also the whole question of family government !;
wherefore we gladly come back to it.
That it is possible, and not only possible, but
extremely easy to teach young children per
fectly good manners, we know very we'll from
personal experience; and the only thing about
the matter at which we are disposed to wonder
at all is, the extreme ease with which 1t may
be accomplished. :,
A young child, whether it be healthy or 9th
erwise, initiates the people with whom 1t asso-
ciates in everything All its performances I, are
copies. If you speak granmatically,- your
child will learn to do the same thing. Il you
have nasal twang in your speech, ne will I'M
itate it. And so it will be with everything else
What the boy sees older people do, he will do,
whether he be told to do so or not Indeed,
precept is almost wholly worthless in the train
ing of children, because they forget the pre-
cept as soon as they hear it, or remembering,
do not know how 20 apply it.. 1t does no good
to tell d boy that "the verb, to be, takes the
rominatiye case after it," but we know sturdy
little fellow who never yet said "1ts me-" and
that because he has always heard his parents
saw "Its l." BE has never been told how to
behave at the table; but as his parents are
always careful to be courteous and polite, not
only to each other but to him as we'll, he has
unconsciously absorbed the habit of courtesy,
which no amount of direct teaching would
have given him. If he is still at the table
when bis parents leave they ask him to excuse
them, and he very naturally does likewise if
he is compelled to leave before the meal IS
finished 90.
And his is not solitary case by any means,
nor is he morbidly good boy either. he
simply initiates the people around hlm as all
children and in q smaller degree, all grown
folks do.
The whole secret of child training lies in
this one thing, example. Ill-mannered chill
dren are the children of ill-mannered parents,
except in those cases which are unfortunately,
common, where the children associate more
constantly with servants than with their pa
rents. If the child associates with servants
its manners and its morals too will be those OF
servants, and in the present state OF our clvlll-
zation these are certainly not as good as we
would wish. For ourselves we have no pa
tience with domestic arrangements which leave
no place for the little people at the family tab)7
and in the family circle. Self-indulgent
"nerves" have cost many a parent the purity
of his child. We may as we'll speak plainly
on this subject as we do on all others. No
father has right to consult his own comfort
at the expense of his child's we'll being, and
the father or mother who turns little receptive
souls over to the ignorance, and worse, OF hired
nurses, is guilty of a grieyous wrong g'dolng
Your child has a right to your society. He
has right to sit at your table when you do,
even though his presence crowds the table un.
comfortably. He has right to sit with you
in the parlor when you sit there, and he has a
right to the very best example you know how
to set him. You exact of him obedience and
respect, which is we'll enough but it is of far
more importance that you recognize his rights
than that he recognize yours. He will be noisy
now and then, but he has right to be so, and
you may easily restrain his turbulence when
necessary-not by stamping your foot and cry
ing out, "stop that noise instantly, sir" but
by telling him a little story or otherwise recog-
nizing him as a rational being, capable of being
interested. Make your child your companion,
and then behave yourself we'll, and there will
be no trouble about his manners.-He1rth ana
Hmm