Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1907-08-27
CHILDREN AT TABLE
NEVER TOO YOUNG TO BE
TAUGHT MANNERS.
With the First Meal Taken with the
Elders Attention Should Be Paid
to the Little Graces Of
Good Breeding.


AS soon as a baby is old enough
to take its first meal at the table with
grown people attention should be paid
to it's manners. Precisely why In
stinctively we seem always to do the
wrong thing until taught better l do
not know, unless it is on the basis
Of the perverseness of human nature.
The fact remains, however, that I'M
less a baby is taught differently 1t
Will shovel up food in a most distress
ing manner and fill its little mouth
too full at every bite. Infants seem
also to have a positive talent for
holding fork or spoon in the wrong
way, and all these things, apparently
trivial, must be corrected by mothers.
To think that a baby is too young
to be shown the proper amount OF
food that a fork should hold is the
greatest mistake, because the little
enc will continue in the way it be-
gins.
Each one of us has been appalled,
or disguised at the, bad table manners
OF the children of some of our friends,
but it is not too much to say that such
are entirely the result of Indifference
or ignorance on the part of parents
and reflects upon them accordingly.
Only such quantity as may be com
fortably put into the mouth should be
taken on the fork at a time, and two
bites from the same forkful is the
Iasonf Of Io hove
and girls should learn. Attention
should be given to the way this inn
plement is held, for the instructive
method seems to be to grasp it at the
head of the tines. A child should be
taught at once that the clasp must be
and thus eating will be a simpler
process for little children, especially
If the fork is not large.
There is no excuse for a little boy
or girl taking soup from a spoon so
full as to be dripping while raised. /
know some grown persons have this
habit that one cannot help calling dis
gIsting, because it is piggish, but
spoon should never be more than mod
erately full and the liquid should be
taken from the side, not from the tip.
Comparatively few children are
taught how to drink in a well-man-
nered way Instead of the cup being
allowed to go into the mouth to the
corners the little one should learn to
take small mouthfuls of the liquid,
end the lips will be less covered with
it when the cup is taken down. Milk
mustaches" should be as reprehenstble
for children as for grown persons.
Being just a healthy little animal
by nature, a child regards a napkin
in the light of foolishness, and will
use it only when the arts of civiliza-
ton are being inculcated. This, how
ever, is one it should early learn, for
remnants of food left on the mouth
render the sweetest child unattrac-ive.
The child is always more or less Of
a mimic and in nothing will this show
more positively than in its table man
ners. If those at the table with it
eat in slovenly fashion so will he or
she, but unfortunately the reverse
does not work without aid. A good
example alone in the matter of eating
is not enough for little children.
Prompting also is necessary, but it
will more quickly acquire attractive
ways and be less of a young animal at
it's food if the teaching is reinforced
by xample.-Baltimore American.
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