The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1873-09-25
NUMBER 20.
Children at Table.
Causes of had Behavior.

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 nt some pc
riod of their existence well-bred boys
and girls. In practice, so faras 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 50 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 he
not? And if we accept his dictum as
correct, how are we to have the finished
product unless we begin at the ebeginning
The saviOr faire, the nameless 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
allowed her during several years to eat
with Bridget at the nursery table. What
else could you expect? Children are re-
prC ductions of the world around them I;
and if to save yourself trouble you let
that world be made Of the ignorant and
the rcpulsive, You reap what you have
sown when you have 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 II very short journey
and Il very short stay Mt fashionable
hotel is enough to put even so estab-
lishcd faith as ours to pretty severe
test. We do not blame the children.
Far from it. Despite our yielding Gre
dcnce 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 obedl-
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
ewes, would seem to them humlllatlng
| exhibitions of their own weakness.
without sclf-control, the person who at
temuts to control a child is very likely
to fail lamentably. Oddly enough, the
npople who never in their lives pos
sesscd particle OF fitness for so delicate
Il task are the very people who are pos
.assnd of n desire to show their mis-
management in places whore it is sure
TO be seen. Materfamilias and her half
dozen little ones file in to the break fast
table. where, with clamor and outcry
md considerable pushing and pulling,
the latter are accommodated with seats.
Then ensues what may be described as
on intermittent skirmish. Lottie reach
ing for the butter and upsetting kate's
cofiee-cup every ono of the brood drinks
coffee and devours pickles. and John
dipping his bread into the gravy or
screaming like savage because his
mother intercepts him on the way and
prevents the act. "My children are 80
spoiled," the poor thing remarks, with
a manner half proud and half depreca-
ting, and the sufferers whose comfort
thev have wrecked have no difficulty IN
believing her. If good digestion wait
ON appetite, and appetite depend on 40
cessories of not only well-appolnted
and palatably-dressed meal but upon the
company around the board, then it IS
manifest truth that inyalids and nerv-
ous people at least, il not all who are
civilized, even the well and strong,
should be protected from incursions OF
Youthful barbarians. 1t is an unpar-
donable thing in parents to let children
grow up ignorant of the common con-
vepances of society, and painfully awk'
ward and rude. For their own sakes,
os well as for those of others, we entreat
mothers to notice how the little ones be-
have mt the table, to get over the mis-
take of enioining company manners ana
to make the prohibitory notice unnec-
essary.