, 1888-11-25


in Vivid Contrast to Young Americas
ways-The Secret of the Matter.
Speaking of American children / lave
often wondered why it was that they were
generally so trying to the world at large
outside of their immediate families.
French children are treated with quite as
much if not more injudicious indulgence.
1 have known French parents to ~stipulate
before accepting an invitation to a dinner
party, that they should be allowed to
bring with them their darling daughter,
aged six. And this was by no means an
isolated or extraordinary instance. But
no ono aver saw a French child swinging
on the back of a visitors chair or poking
its fingers into the callers neck or crawl
ing under the table to investigate the
callers shoes or taking his or her UNI
brella to ride cock horse on it, or playing
circus around the center table with whoops
and yells enough to deafen the bystanders
while a visit was in progress.
THE BAD o IN PARIS.
Passing along the Paris streets, if you
see a well dressed boy of z or 8 swinging on
all the iron bars in front of the shop win
dows, getting into peoples way, and
making a nuisance of himself generally,
you may be sure that the youth is an en-
bryo citizen of the great United States.
III cAO ONNdoIOhB IL a LOlluOh DOdlu1uS
house, two boys of 10 and 8 respectively
tried to hoist up u bowl of custard from
the hall table down stairs to the third
floor landing by means of a moose of cord.
OF course the bowl was overturned and
broken and the table and carpet were
deluged with the custard. Being left I'M
punished, and even unrebuked, by their
parents, they lowered next day q sponge
into the soup tureen, and the family were
fprt Il with rar,aa4Al - 1aa,ro H. I~,-a
| do not wonder that the landlords of flats
or furnished houses in America refuse
often to take families with children.
When one hears of a set of furniture COW
cred with fine stamped leather having its
covering cut into strips by the children of
an American tenant (this occurred in a
London hotel), one ceases to marvel at the
apparent cruelty of those proprietors who
seek to shut out such destructive imps
from their premises. Nor are these dread
full young ones the scions of people in a
class of life in which one would usually
expect to find ignorance of the finer in
stincts of life. | AVE seen an American
boy belonging to one of the most aristo-
cratic families in the United States seated
on the floor at a juvenile party with a
plate piled high with delicacies between
his legs, and ~gobbling down the dainties
with uncouth noises and unrestrained
greediness.
Now, these dreadful small boys and
girls almost invariably grow up into well
behaved men and women. But the great
sourc of their i'll conduct in childhood
arises from the fact that American pa
rents seldom or never think it worth
while to teach their children manners. A
French boy or girl is trained from its
earliest infancy to rise from its seat when
q stranger enters the room, to sit per-
fectly still when making a call. and not
to speak till spoken to, to remain quiet
when taken out driving, and not to ask
for water or to complain of being tired,
to walk along the street like a lady or a
gentleman, never to touch the belongings
of any grown person, etc. l nave staid
at the home of q French lady whose
youngest and idolized child was then a
fine boy of S. In the absence of his father
the young gentleman (Which he was, most
emphatically) would gravely enact the
part of host, offering me his slender arm
back to my seat. and always leaving me
with the profound bow required by French
etiquette.
P~OLITENEsS TOWARDS ELDERS.
h American boy or girl, even when
nearly grown up, is entirely ignorant of
any form or demonstration of p%oliteness
towards his or her elders. None of my
young country people, unless educated in
Europe, ever think of fising when an
elder person enters the room, of drawing
aside to let such a person first pass
through a doorway. of r~elinquishing a
seat on the sofa or in an arm chair to an
elderly visitor, etc. 1t is not their fault
their parents have never trained them
in manners while they were little children.
l had an complication of the difference
in mnnne between French and American
children the other day whilst paying a
call at enc of the great Partisan hotels.
As was waiting to get into the elevator
an American boy, about 8 years of age,
pushed past me with all his small
strength, jumped into the elevator and
took the only available seat, leaving me
to stand. My visit once paid, l left my
friends room and encountered in the hall
n group of French children, seated on a
sofa and evidently waiting for some one.
On seeing me, one of the number, a little
fellow in a c~ollegian's uniform, instantly
slipped off of his seat and raised his cap
to salute me as l approached. Possibly
the American boy may grow up a much
finer fellow and will be hereafter more
really polite to ladies than his Partisan
contemporary. But meanwhile the latter
is by far the most agreeable individual for
an elderly lady to encounter casually.
The secret of the whole matter is that
manners, like foreign languages, should
be taught to children in their earliest
years. | have heard American parents
talk of the charm of letting children grow
up natural and unrestrained. The natural
and unrestrained ii. e.. the unframed and
unrestricted) child is a detestable howl
ing little savage. If the world, as in the
days of Eden, held only one married pair
and their offspring, such a case of severely
letting alone the intoxicating of what some
one calls the minor morals of humanity
would do well enough. Buteas long as
there are people on earth who Are liable to
be worried by other peoples children it is
tho duty of parents to render their
darlings as little obnoxious to strangers
as possible, and not to so bring them up
that we may wonder If Beelzebub, after
creating q sufficient nu Der of imps for
the realms below, had not left over a
largo quantity of unused material which
had been worked into the substance Of
which American children are composed.
There is in America a Society for tho