The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-04-25
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsEHN, Director.
Washington, D. c.
HAVE MANNERS DECAYED?


of the younger generation of them, are
rapidly deteriorating, according to DR..
Charles w. Eliot, president emeritus
of Harvard, who is a sort of profess
sional representative of the last CEN
fury.
He protests against the~informality
of greetings, against the fact that men
smoke in the presence of women, that
boys and girls touch, tap and shove"
each other, and that they talk about
things, events, processes and sub
jects" which the young men and
women of his day never mentioned at
all. BY this latter circumlocution, the
learned doctor is trying to tell us,
without making himself blush, that
men and women now frankly discuss
matters of sex.
This plant against the deterioration
of our manners has been heard so
often of late that the subject seems
to require study. What are good
manners and what purpose do they
serve? Are our manners really de-
teriorating or merely changing?
After consulting a number of the
great authorities, living and dead, On
the subject, we are unable to answer
these questions, but can pass on to the
reader some of the information ac-
quired and let him try to answer them
for himself
The scientists seem agreed that the
manners of society are rooted to a
great extent in fear-the fear that
individuals have of each other, and
that the individual has for society as
a whole. This point is emphasized by
Mrs. Elsie Clewes Parsons, an able
American woman anthropologist
In support of this view it may be
shown that manners have always been
most formal and perfect where both
these fears were ell-grounded. In
the south before the Civil war for eX-
a r1TNln = l.
fight duels over small matters, some
times mere discourtesies. Rude treat
ment of women was also a cause for
bloodshed. At the same time, observ.
ers assure US that public opinion was
tyrannical.
ners or careless words might cost
man his life, and the result was a code
of manners of great formality and
beauty. They were remarkably SINH
lar to the manners of Elizabethan Eng
land when every gentleman wore a
sword and was always ready to skewer
other gentlemen for -impoliteness. 1t
may also be pointed out that manners
are now most perfect in formal So
ciety, where each is wholly dependent
erS rather than upon his own abilities.
The Value of FormaIity.
Manners, then, are probably ground
ed partly in fear. But that is moth
ing against them. Most of our virtues
are based on fear according to the
scientists. And, whatever their ORR
gin, manners undoubtedly add ease
and grace to life. They 1ubricate per-
sonal contacts, saving friction, and at
the same time lending dignity to the
social spectacle. 1t is natural that
Doctor Eliot and his contemporaries
should resent the passing of formal
MANNERS from so much of our Nlife.
They are in some respects a genuine
loss.
At the same time, there Is some
thing gained. We are less formal with
each other in part because we are
less afraid of each other. Hence, IL
there is less of formal grace in our
intercourse, there is more of sponta-
neity and genuineness. 1t Is easier to
"get at a man." to make a friend of
him. It is also easier for men and
women to get along with each other.
Surely the frank discussions which
take place between them nowadays
are more conducive to a real under
standing than the empty exchanges of
rhetorical broadsides which took place
in Victorian days, if we can believe
the novelists.
Fear no longer plays such a large
part in social relations, but fear is
not the only motive in manners. A
feeling of kindness and amiability
also finds expression in them. 1t is
this which gives them spirit, as fear
gives them form. Now the form is
gone, but the spirit has not been abol
ished. We all know people whose
natural sweetness makes their man
ners charming a1tho they are anything
but formal. The trouble is that vul-
garity, bad taste, brutality, also have
free play where the formalisms have
been abandoned. In a country such
as early Victorian England or our own
ante-bellum South, children were
taught a code of manners as rigid as
the rules of chess. On certain oc-
casions they must bow in certain ways.
There were set forms for saying and
doing everything. The cad and the
dolt couldn't thus be given SEM
blance of courtesy. They would lack
the grace which is lent by fine
spirit, but their acquired formalisms
would keep them from being offensive.
Any one, if caught young enough, can
be taught the outward form of man
ners. Even monkeys have been
| trained to good table manners
The case seems to be, then, that the
decay of formal manners has added to
the sponaneity of human intercourse,
and where natural good taste and
good feeling prevail, it has probably
not detracted from the charm of social
life On the other hand, it has I'M
doubtedly given free play to vulgar
! ity and bad taste and feeling. and has
caused the social spectacle as a whole
to deteriorate. You may consider 1T a
| gain or a loss, as you choose, but in
either case you may comfort yourself
with the thought that it is inevitable
| There will be no return to the days of
| formal courtesies and long gallant
speeches. We have come to care more
for directness and honesty than for
grace and artificial beauty.
Manners and Characters.
| Beyond a doubt the decay of formal
manners has made life more difficult
for those who have strong feelings of
| irritation or resentment to conceal.
Formal manners tend to conceal these
I things automatically. The proper
speeches and gestures are made from
long habit while the inner man may
be boiling. That good manners are
L6ometimes a sort of heroism is pointed
out by Nadal an American writer and
an acute social observer. He notes.-the
salient fact that pleasant manners are
| relatively EASY for those who are han