Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1893-01-18
"MANNERS MAKYTH MAN" WHO
MAKYTH MANNER ?

A not uncommon fin de steele lament
is the wall that good manners have
vanished from among us. We have
forgotten how to bow, and have all
learned to talk slang. We no longer
hesitate to sit down in our parents
presence; we omit to address them as
''slr" and madam; and we write
notes and postcards instead of epistles.
We romp in the 'barn-door" instead
OF posing in the minuet. But this
outcry over the decadence of courtesy
is no new thing. Even in the days of
powder Chesterfield raised the lament.
What would he have said of present
day manners and tone? In shaking of
the shackIes of the rigid etiquette of
the last century, the stiff primness of
the early Victorian age, may we not be
in danger of lapsing from ease into
licenee?
There is no doubt that women indi
rectly aid and abet THIS degeneracy.
In modern society men are SO eagerly
sought after that the position of the
sexes is fast becoming reversed. The
hostess, IN her anxiety to "catch men, "
is tempted to yield, here an inch and
there an inch, to their vanity, their
weaknesses, to psnder to their com
fort, and to humOr them in every way.
Tyhe are to be allowed to smoke at all
times and in all places. From the
cOrUee of calling, and even of card
leaving, or invitation answering, men
are to be exempt. Not too much must
be required of them, lest they fail So
ciety altogether Dancing men, es
pecially, have, emphatically, the ball
at their feet.
Now, manners, properly so cslle1
are under the special RgiS of wo-
man. In countries where she is i'm
| prisoned and down-trodden, they do
not exist at all, and are but ill replaced
by etiquette and ceremonial, covering
with a tin veneer coarseness and brutal
| ity. Only in the countries where the
two sexes meet freely, and on an equal
lty, do manners obtain. So woman,
the rdisOn d'etre as we'll as the cHsto-
dian of manners, must look to her
| trust. 1t is boys female surround
ings that gradually refine the awkward
hobbledehoy into civilized man. The
careful mother, the ju iicious hostess,
| will discriminate and rule between
stiffness and rowdyness If polite con-
versatiop as understood by the Grand
MOndrqae is a lost art, at least among
the upper classes, men no longer swear
and get drunk before ladies, and wo-
men do not read aloud books and dis
cuss topics unveiled which their great
! grandmothers handled without a blush.
The sepulchre may be no longer white
washed. We lack the time to do it in
these days of haste and hurry. But
the dead-men's bones of the grosser
vices have been removed from it.
We may lament, however, the super
| cilious nod, the personal, half-rude
chaff, the practical joking, and the
noisiness so much in vogue among our
young men and maidens. Men will
| talk and behave as women let them.
We are a practical, busy generation
we lead freer, fuller, and less artificial
lives than our forefsthers did, and have
| less time to waste on supertuities.
| Lie is not all ball room, and good
manners, like charity, must begin at
! home, though they need not epn there.
| A boy cannot too soon be inducted
! into the amenities of life, be taught to
open the door to his mother, to give
place to his sister. But it Is not the
boys only who require training: En-
| glish girls are too self conscious, want
ing IN ease with the other sex. 1t is
| the naive cdDlardderie of the Transat
lantic cousin, which constitutes her
greatest charm. There is such thing
as familiarity without contempt. Wo-
man is something more than ''unde-
yelored man." He owes il to her to
| treat her nei her as a toy in the plea
sure nor a rival in the business of life.
Rut uban we hear women pr0aninO
over the treatment they are receiving
at mems hands, bewaIling the rude
ness, lamenting that the day of petits-
so ms Is as past as that OF chivalry, let
us construe anew for them the old
Wykebamist motto, and bid them re-
member that if manners make the
man." it is woman emphaticsily that
makes the manners.