The Irish standard., 1906-03-10

on large scale. The American
millionaire seems always willing to
slave in dingy ONCE that his wife and
daughters may have luxury and all
manner Of entertainment at home, and
to globe-trot to their hearts content
when the spirit moves them to grow
weary Of their own land. Perhaps it
is this very subservency of the men of
a family to its women that makes the
latter selfish and as a consequence in
considerable, to say the least When
women are not considerable their man.
ners will lack courtesy, and we must
acknowledge that as nation we lack
both manner and manners. Are not
women to be blamed for this? They
set the fashion in manners as in many
other things, and if they demand the
finest, the finest they shall receive. A
woman was gleeful in the writer's
presence the other day because a gen.
tlemen Tin the true sense Of the word)
stood with hat in hand while she was
in an elevator. She said it was the
second experience in a lifetime. A wo-
man friend said she might we'll make
much of it, for she had never had such
an experience. Taking the opposite
view was youth in his teens who
said the uncovering was unnecessary
and far-fetched. Was the courtesy far
fetched? Perhaps, it is an open ques-
ton. At any rate it was beautiful, but
how much do We care for beauty for
its own sake? Very little. we must
admit with sadness.
We are apt to scott at the forms of
courtesy, but all these forms which
often irk have their root in sound COM
mon sense, and make for the greatest
good of the greatest number. People
who for the world would not do an un-
kind thing, positively decline through
some prevented notion to make their
Kindness graceful. Take the lowliest
born of other lands, and what I'M
conscious grace is theirs, in manner,
in salutation, in smile. We, with our
Wanted civilization and with aids
to education and culture that the
world has never seen, are Doors
sometimes by comparison with the
Irish, the French, the German or the
italian peasant. who with sunny smile
puts himself out to answer a question
or give a direction. Much Of our SEEM
ing boorishness has hitherto come
from self-consciousness. but with trav-
ell, with liberal education from books
which are always a reflex of manners,
one would think that Americans would
begin to copy some of the eld-world
simplicity Of manner. The root of the
matter is beginning to strike deeper
than circumstances. Are our child
rem taught fine manners? 1t does not
appear to be the case. On the con-
trary, they are taught that, the best
the world can give is none too good
for them. What will this teaching
generate but the most intense selfish
ness? And although it may be OBJ
jected that those who have conven-
TONS forms at their finger ends, can
be most insolent and insincere, it does
not follow that absence Of form neces-
sarily means sincerity.
Let US look to children's manners.
After all it is the little things that
make or mar our pleasure in life. Let
young women see to 1t that they are
conscious of boorishness in the young
men with whom they associate, and
surely there will be change. A gen.
tleman of the old school, gentle
woman of the old school, will not be
Such wonder then, for our gentlemen
and gentlewomen of the new school
will be in no whit their interiors.