The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-31
Courtesy As An Asset

| From the Cincinnati Enquirer. l Courtesy is considerateness. It Is the
 helpfuness of a person to a person. It
 is graciousness.
 It is kindness to one who has no spe-
 cial claim to kindness.
 It Is seeking to serve. 1 It is a sort of mental conscientious
 ness.
 It is putting the heart into duty, a , human feeling into obligation. It represents pleasure in doing piece of work for another.
 The great cause or condition of cour- tesy lies in the power of putting one's 8
 self into the other persons place. It represents intellectual altrusism. It stands
 for seeing with the other persons eyes, for hearing with his ears. It represents emotional substitution. It really might be said to embody a sort of transfer of personalities yet with out a loss of ones own. Such a power of vicariousness is hard to get and to use. It often stands for high degree of intellectual appreciation, which belongs only to great minds. It also often repre- sents a certain abounding heartedness
 which is found only in noblest natures. Selfishness is the chief cause of a lack of courtesy Ones thought is centered
 on one's self. Ones feeling is pivoted on one's own heart. Ones will is directed toward one's own pleasure and satisfac- tion.
 Selfishness represents an overvaluation of ones self in comparison with the valuation of other personalities.
 Yet the lack of courtesy Is sometimes born of mere boorishness. Boorshness represents ignorance always, but does not always represent selfshness The boor may want to care. and to show his care for others, but does not know how. The lack of courtesy may also come from simple bashfulness. It is simply oversen- sitiveness or over self-consciousness. It really represents an extreme valuation of others opinions. But after all. the one comprehensiveness and deep cause of a lack of courtesy is sheer selfishness.
 It Is pleasantly significant that great men are usually courteous. Small men are in dire peril of lacking the grace and the virtue.
 The reason, of course. is evident enough: great men are not selfish If they were, they would not be great They are great because their lives have gone out into other lives and the other lives have come into their lives and made their lives far richer and higher and broader and deeper than they otherwise could have been made.
 The sense of courtesy is increasing in American life. The officers of public corporations, such as railroads, tele- phone, telegraph companies, become more and more the embodiments of genuine helpfulness.
 asked a high executive in a great railroad system, distinguished for the courtesy of every member of the i'm mense staff, by what method the rail- road promoted such courtesy. Ills an- swer was: ''It gets good men, and then it treats them well'' The answer of this official represents the two normal methods.
 Let every corporation, every business house, seek to secure associates who are by nature courteous, and, after se- curing them, let it treat them well.
 But even if this rule be adopted, cour- tesy does lie in the mind and heart and conscience of the individual. The tempta- tion of the individual mingling with many people is to forget to be courteous But he should seek so to bear himself that. as one officer over whose counter hun dreds of persons purchase railroad tickets said to me, Courtesy becomes a second nature"
 It is worthy of note that the American city to which more Americans are com ing this season than to any other-San Trancsco--has just. won distinction by the genuine courtesy and considerateness of all citizens. The street car conductor, the policeman. the guard at the exposi- ton, as well as the ''man in the street." have as a rule proved themselves to be possessOrs of the great aseet of courtesy.