The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-11-20
GOOD MANNERS.
Many College Graduates Seem Lack
 ing in Them.

President Eliot, in most courteou:
 address to Miss Hazard, congratulated
 her on the position she is to occupy a:
 president of Wellesley college With hi
 own cear-sghted wisdom, and in that
 prophetic habit in which perhaps he
 most distinguishes himself, he said, 1T
 substance, that the presidents of the
 women's colleges have white paper te 1 write upon; they are not tied up in the | tangles of medieval traditions. And
 among other hopes with which he illus
 trated this remark he said that he
 thought they might be able to inculcate
 manners with which more success than
 the old colleges had done.
 1 This remark challenged some indig-
 nant comment among teachers, and
 am told that it has called out some pro- | tests which I have not seen It seems 1 to me that this must be from misap- prehension of what he meant by man.
 ners, or perhaps from that narrow view | which should confine manners" in the | little realm of the etiquettes or deco rums of ordinary social life. In truth, however, the evils and dangers which Dr. Eliot had in mind are much deeper than those which are discussed in a
 hand book of etiquette They are not
 to be ranked among the infelicities which can be corrected by three lines in ladies newspaper addressed to Pollie
 or Maggie, who write for information.
 For instance, I happen to know a
 man who has taken pleasure for many
 years past in sending through the wo-
 mems colleges young woman selected from the public schools by their teach CTS as being specially fit for the higher
 education My friend has paid the
 whole expenses of these young women
 through their college courses, at a
 charge of I do not know how many
 thousands of dollars. This year doz-
 en of them, more or less, were graduat- ed at different colleges. Of that mum
 Der one wrote to him to thank for his generosity and to invite him to her commencement. All the others took their diplomas without one word to him or any expression in any form of gratitude
 Again, distinguished leader of this community, who died a few years since, cautioned me with the caution which his father had given him when he came to manhood The father said: T think you will like to help young men in their education. Take care never to accept from them any written oblga- tion Here are two or three thick files of such obligations which I have taken, and which the writers have forgotten. It always makes me cynical to look at them.''
 Once more, the treasurer of large education fund who had for many years sent annually dozen or twenty chekc to students who received benefits of that fund told me that in ten years time he had never once had receipt in acknowledgment of his payment. Tn the annual audit of his accounts he all ways had to present the checks which these young men had been obliged to indorse
 l put in print these three disagree able anecdotes because I think they H. lustrate a remark which I heard made by the late MT. Nemminger of Jeffer- son Davis cabinet. It was at a club in Charleston, S. C., in 1S4S, that MT. Memminger uttered a remarkable pro- test. He said, virtually, that 1t cut the tap-root of gratitude. He said that, if the children received this priceless gift from the state, it would wean them from the love of their fathers and mothers. He said that public education was destructive to the tenderness of home. What was pathetic In this was that it was said that he himself had been brought up in an orphan asylum, and knew nothing of that tenderness for whose defense he was contending.
 May it not be fairly asked if some of our children do not grow up with an impudent self-conceit, nursed and bred by our declarations about public educa- tion? Fools, speaking to them on anni- tell them that they are the most important beings in the worlds. They know that the states taxes itself for their training, as it does not for armies and navies. And the danger is that these little gentlemen and ladies shall come to think that they belong at the head of the board, and that those who teach them, who feed them, who clothe them, are a sort of | Helots, quite unworthy of any respect | beyond what supercilious patronage | may express.
 The whole discussion of manners, if 1 t is to be of any use, will bring us back to the central truth-that these | colleges and these schools exist for | and not simply for the petty [ details of instruction To make of | hem mere information bureaus is to degrade them. We nave no use Tor . hem unless they can make men out of E boys and women out of girls. This means character. It means that, first 'f all, boys and girls, young men and 1oung women, shall know who they . Ire to live for. They are to know that hey are in a world where each lives Or all and all for each
 If they can grow to this knowledge lnder the contagion of the teachers to whom such training is intrusted, or by he dignited and noble spirit of the 'ody of young people among whom they i've, good manners are secured. It nay be, though it will probably not be, hat a girl may direct a letter upside owu, but the letter will say the right hing. It may that she will use the vrong fork at the dinner table, but she :,