The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-10-08
MANNERS OF CHILDREN.
Why So Many Children of To-day Are
So Inbred.
From the London Lady's Pictorial.


From the London LGdy's Pictorial
Some of US have been waxing very elo-
orent of late upon this subject. Faute de
,nieur in the dull season we have taken it
nm enthusiastically, and answered and re-
answered each other, and hurled lawful
evemplesn at one 'another's heads. aud fore
told all sorts of terrible fates for TIE naughty
I.tle BOYS and girls of to-day, whose man
,7ars stand in need of reform. In the face
Of all that has been said upon the subject.
and the many examples that have been given
of the shocking behavior of the young
people Of to-day, 1t is, perhaps, somewhat
daring to make the assertion that the
children of the present time are not whit
worse in their way than their fathers and
their mothers before them. Yet such is my
belief. That they are more ''precocious, u
or TO use a slang expression, "wide awake. y
Is undeuiable. But this is the result of
progress. We have learned more about
children than our fathers and mothers
knew. Every generation becomes more
eulightened-"t the thoughts of men are
widened with the process of the suns
and we have, within the last quarter of a
century, learned a great deal about
little folks, with the result that
thew are certainly healthier and
wiser than those of a previous generation
Take modern child Of years old and con-
trast it with those of the same age whom
YOU remember twenty or thirty years ago
ASK the grandmothers what they think of
the baby of to-day as compared with the
baby Of the last generation. The result and
the answer will be the same. The3-year-old
of this age is a thinking, intelligent being,
very well able to take its own part to act
70 n t,lI
more or less nationally, and to be some what
conpaniouable to its parents. Its forbears
at the same age we're treated and expected
TO act like helpless infants. They were fed,
clothed talked to, played with and gen
orally regarded as invertebrates, or Great
ures with und5Yeloped faculties and senses.
In consequence, the little beings got no op-
portunty Of using the Intelligence, the
strength, and the gifts with which nature
had endowed them.
We have now changed all that. Our
children are nationally treated, and the old
fashioned folk at once call them precocious
They make smart" remarks, that is to say.
they reproduce like Photographs what
they have in some form and at some time
heard their elders say, and they are dubbed
impertinent. They do mucn as We do, and
We call them "ruden and "ill-mannered. p"
So, while We have advanced in one way,
that is to say in the management Of our
children, we ourselves have progressed
backward" with regard to our own man
ners, and seeing them reproduced by our off
spring jump at once to the conclusion that
the fault is theirs. The children of previous
generations, when all allowed to use their
faculties, without doubt initiated their
elders faults and failings aud virtues in
Just the same way, but courtesy was not
out OF fashion then as it is now, and SO
what with their backwardness, :" as the
nurses say, and their more careful exemp-
lars, they lacked the opportunities of the
modern child for acquiring the tone which
weare now lamenting at great length and
with much vehemence in the daily press
Children, it has been very truly said, have
more need of models than Of critics. They
are purely initiative, these little creatures,
and they are, after all, what we make
them. We have happily learned wisdom,
or some wisdom, as regards their treat
ment, but we have apparently yet to
acquire the art OF behaving 30 that they
shall mirror our conduct with credit to
themselves and to the comfort of others.
To gravely criticise the manners of little
Children in an age when we ''grow-ups"
give daily, even hourly evidence that we
are ignorant and careless of the commonest
courtesies Of life, is very like stralning at
gnat aud swallowing q camel. do not see
why we should expect the manners of our
children to be better than our OWL, or young
folks TO know what they are not taught.
They certainly have few opportunities of
acquiring courtesy at home, and il they
are taken to public places they often only
witness the crosses acts of rudeness, and
the display Of every variety OF bad
manners. Take them into we'll
dressed crowd, and in quarter of an hour
they will lie fully impressed with the idea
that the correct behavior of presu mably
we!lbred men and women is TO push and
scramble and elbow ard glare at each other.
lake them on a railway journey and they
will see their parents maneuvering for the
best seats in the carriages, wrengling with
strangers over the open or closed windows,
and accepting small services, for which they
never utter word Of thanks. Take them
to the theater, they will see people pushing
BY and constantly intercepting the view of
others without q word Of apology. In the
daly life within doors dozen examples
viii occur in the conduct f guests, in the
treatment of servants, in the course of con-
NTsation, in acts unnoticed by older per-
Sous, but all of which the receptive mind of
child is so ready to seize. Our manners
are always under examination and, re-
Numbering what they are, it really seems
nothing short of ludicrous to
gfumole at the poor wee folk for
uolng as we teach them. When we have
mehded our own manners we shall be better
AOe to judge those of our children. Until
We 90 SO much fear the courtesy of the
modern youth will not be other than it is,
ahu meantime maintain that the children
" Today are no worse hammered than those
VI heretofore, since it is not in the spirit. but
a. in Inc letter, that they err, and the letter it
10 tnat we set them to CoDV