The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1873-09-19
NUMBER 5.
Children at Tabe.
Causes of Bari Bshavsor.y

Cau8es of Ban BohaVsor.y
We always rebel in spirit at the no.
tice so often conspicuously posted in
boats and hotels, " Children not allowed
at the first table" !" says the Hearth and
Home. On principle we utter our pro
test against it, since all well-bred men
and women must have been at some pc
riod of their existence welI-bred bows
and girls. In practice, so far as we have
had to do with the rising generation, we
have especially trained them to proper
behavior at the table. The table is the
social centre of home and, while eat
ing, regarded simply per sc, is not es-
thetic, yet around it cluster so many
pleasant associations, and so much may
be done to make its appointments de
lightful, that the fact is that the way
they eat draws the line between the bar
barous and the civilized people of the
earth. "The gentleman is quiet, the
lady is serene" says Emerson, does be
not? And if we accept his dictum as
correct, how are we to have the finished
product unlesswe begin at the beginningl
The SGViOT fHire, the nameIess grace
that belongs to the cultivated person,
can not be learned from manual Of ct
iquette. 1t comes by degrees. So, ma
dam, if you are shocked when your lit
tie girl puts her knife into her mouth
and helps herself to berries with her
own spoon, you need not be if you have
sllowed her during several years to eat
with Bridget at the nursery table. What
else could You expect? Children are re-
pre- ductions of the world around them;
and if to save yourself trouble you let
that world be made of the ignorant and
the repulsive, you reap what you have
soWn when you have a harvest of bad
habits to uproot and destroy. Do men
gather grapes of thorns or figs Of this
ties? Still, having so much confessed,
we must say that a very short journey
and a very short stay at a fashionable
hotel is enough to put even so estab-
Hshed faith as ours to pretty severe
test. We do not blame the children.
Far from it. Despite our yielding Gre
dence to the dogma that treats of origi-
nal sin, we hold to it that, naturally,
children enjoy being good. They are
never SO happy as when they are obedi-
ent and amiable. We think too that
nothing is easier than to have them so,
and the harsh measures to which some
people are quick to resort to that end,
if they could see themselves with our
eyes, would seem to them humiiating
exhibitions of their own weakness.
Without self-eontrol, the person who at
tempts to control a child is very likely
to fail lamentably. Oddly enough, the
people who never in their lives pos
sessed a particle of fitness for so delicate
a task are the very people who are pos
sessed of q desire to show their mis-
management in places where 1t Is sure
to be seen. Materfamilias and her half
dozen little ones file In to the break fast
table, where, with clamOr and Outcry
and considerable pushing and pulling,
the latter are accommodated withsseats.
Then ensues what may be described as
an intermittent skirmish. Lottie reach
ing for the butter and upsetting Kate's
cofEee-cup Cevery one of the brood drinks
coffee and devours pickles. and John
dipping his bread into the gravy, or
screaming like savage because his
mother intercspts him on the way and
prevents the act. '' My children are SO !
spoiled" the poor thing remarks, with
a manner half proud and half depreca-
ting, and the sufferers whose comfort
they have wrecked have no difficulty in !
believing her. If good digestion wait
on appetite, and appetite depend on &C
cessories of not only a well-appointed
and palatably-dressed meal but upon the
company around the board, then it is a
manifest truth that inYaIids and nerv-
Gus people at least, if not all who are
civilized. even the we'll and strong, /
should be protected from incursiOns of !
youthful barbarians. It is an unpar- !
donable thing in parents to let children /
grow up ignorant of the common con .
venances of society, and painfully awk- !
ward and rude. For their own sakes, /
as we'll as for those of others, we entreat
mothers to notice how the little ones be |
have at the table, to get over the mis-
take of enioining company manners, and
to make the Prohibitory notice uunec-