The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-02-07

manners: YOU Go not allow The boys to
tramp through the house with noisy
boots or sop gravy with their bread.
the girls are not permitted to stare at
strangers or take chicken or chop bones
in their fingers But beyond this point
I doubt II you have done much for the
perfection of your children's manners,
nor are you as yet making your effort
quite in the right direction
I can see that you have fallen into
the common error of believing the only
way to learn TO be charming is TO go
out into the world and acquire that art
by contact with strangers: by attend
ing balls. dinners. etc.
"One way it certainly is. but 1t is also
the very hardest way. and / want to
make you understand that no matter
where you live or how you live, the
best school for social culture is right
in the family circle.
i know a family, southern one
too. whose experience viii serve to
point my moral and adorn my tale, be-
cause they were situated in circum-
stances not so very unlike your own.
The parents lost nearly every bit Of
property in the civil war, and, with
seven children, they went 70 live on an
isolated plantation, miles removed from
any white neighbOrs. - great was
no cloth for the dinner table, but, when
the five brothers and two sisters grew
uD and went away from home, there
was not one who failed promptly to he
come a more or less celebrated favorite
in society.
HOW 1t Was Done.
"Their sweet, friendly. engaging ways
Won hearts everywhere. The brothers
slipped quickly into good business, the
sisters married admirably, and one,
welded 10 q man who afterward be-
came a foreign minister, assured me
that not until she was a matron had
she ever been to real dinner party in
her life"
But how on earth was it done?"
asked my. visitor with interest
THAT father and mother did it right
IN their home" 1 answered. Those
boys and girls grew I'D in daily eXecu-
ton Of their social duties. They were
taught to take the most unselfish pains
to be scrupulOusly civil TO one another.
Il have been at their table in their
days of extreme poverty. and though
the cloth was lacking, and though the
best dessert they had was fresh fruit
or a corn pudding. the manners dis
PLAYED there would have done credit to
a Chesterfield.
Those young people knew it was
their duty to DISPLAY more than decent
habits with the knife and folk. Not a
member of the household was allowed
TO drift in late 10 q meal, bolt his food.
sit mOOdily at his plate. and then slip
away when he had finished his own
helping.
Not q hoy took his seat till the mis-
tress of the house found hers; even a
visiting girl CT boy cousin was paid
special honOTs. and at table there was
conversation and cheerful conversation
too. Every one tried 10 talk his best
if only about the simple duties and
happenings of the day.
"The parents set an example in this
to the children and when those young
people grew up they did not have ar
dUousIy TO learn how to talk and of
what how to listen with patient intent
ness and never to interrupt. They had
been habituated to the pleasant duty
Of entertaining each other and they
knew an the arts of dropping into con
versatiou with any one into whose
company they We're cast
Their behavior abroad was just what
&c had always been at home, and what
rendered them one and all. irresistibly