The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1874-02-18
Children mt Table-Causes Ofbad BE
haviOr.

hnvior.
We always rebel in spirit st the notice
so conspicuously posted in boats and no
tells, "Children not allowed at the first
table," says the Hearth and Home. On
principle we utter our protest against it,
since all welLbred men aud women must
have been at some period Oftheir existence
well-bred boys 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 center of home;
and, while eating, regarded simply per Sc,
is not esthetc. yet around it cluster so
many associations, and so much may be
done to make its appointments delightful,
that the fact is that the way they eat
draws the line between the barbarous
and the civilized people of the earth.
" The gentleman is quiet, the lady is
serene" says Emerson, does he not 7 And
if we accept his dictum as correct, how
are we to have the finished product unless
we begin at the beginning! The savoir
fare, the nameless grace that belongs to
the cultivated person, cannot be learned
from q manual of etiquette. 1t comes by
degrees. So madam, if you are shocked
when your little 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 reproductions 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
thistles? Still, having so much confessed
we must say that very short journey,
and very short stay at fashionable no
tel is enough to put even so established
faith as ours to pretty severe test We
do not blame the children. Far from it.
Despite our yielding credence to the dog
ma that treats of original sin, we hold to
it that, naturally, children enjoy being
good. They are never so happy as when
they are obedient 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 as we
see them with our eyes, would seem to
them very humiliating exhibitions of their
own weakness. Without self-eontrol, the |
person who attempts to control a child is
very likely to fail lamentably. Oddly |
enough, the people who never in their
lives possessed a particle of fitness for so
delicate task are the very people who
are possessed of desire to show their
mismanagement in places where it is sure
to be seen. Materfamilias and her half
dozen little ones file in to the breakfast
table, where, with clamor and cutlery and
considerable pushing and pulling, the lat
ter are accommodated with seats. Then
ensues what may be described as an in
termittent skirmish. Lottie reaching for
the butter and upsetting Kate's coffee
cup (every one of the brood drinks cof-
fee and devours pickles., and John dip
ping his bread into the gravy, or scream
ng ike savage because his mother in
.ercepts him on the way and prevents
he act "AIy children are so spoiled"
he poor thing remarks, with manner
half proud and half deprecatiDg, and the
whose comfort they have wreck
ID have no difficulty in believing her. If
good digestion wait on appetite and appe-
lite depend on the accessories of not only
and palatably-dressed meal
1ut upon the company around the board,
hen it is amanifest truth that invalids and
nervous people at least, if not all who are
civilized, even the well and strong, should
De protected from incursions of youthful
'arbarians. 1t is an objectionable thing
n parents to let children grow up ignor-
mt of the common eonvenances of society,
md painfully awkward and rude. For
heir own sakes, as well as for those of
others, we entreat mothers to notice how
be little ones behave at the table, to get
,Ter the mistake of enjoining company
manners, and to make the prohibitory
notice unnecessary.
The Newspaper.