Chapter 2

10) When your plate is passed for a second helping, let your knife and fork remain on it, side by side; also, when you have finished. Never rest your knife or fork partly on the table and partly on your plate or your napkin ring. Avoid mixing your food on your plate.

11) Use a fork when eating vegetables and salad,--and ice-cream, if an ice-cream fork is provided.

12) If cutting the lettuce leaves of your salad is necessary, cut with your fork.

13) Make the least possible noise in chewing, and none at all in taking food from a spoon. Sometimes, in eating crisp toast, for example, it is very difficult to avoid a crunching sound, but eat slowly, taking very small mouthfuls, and you can avoid noise.

14) Don't drink from a cup while it holds a spoon. When not using your teaspoon, let it lie on the saucer. Do not drink from your saucer. Stir quietly, and lay your spoon in your saucer at once.

15) At the table, keep your hands in your lap when you are not eating; toying with articles on the table is bad form.

16) Between courses, avoid lounging back in your chair; keep your spine straight, your body poised a little forward, and your mind occupied with the conversation which you are helping to make pleasant.

17) Eat a little less of everything than you might. Shrink from the slightest appearance of greediness.

18) Use knives, forks, and spoons in the order you find them. When in doubt, observe your hostess.

19) After dipping the tips of your fingers into your finger bowl, dry them lightly on your napkin.

20) When the hostess rises, boys, rise and draw back the chair of the girl or the woman next you as she rises, and let her precede you from the room.

DUTY TO YOURSELF

_This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man._

--Shakespeare.

1) Take a complete bath at least three times a week; better still, every day.

2) Keep your hair, teeth, finger nails, and clothes in good condition. Look well groomed.

3) If you eat, sleep, and exercise properly, your health and your complexion will be at their best. Consult your gymnasium teacher on the subject, or consult a reliable book.

4) Girls, when you dress your hair too startlingly, wear waists that are too low or too thin, use powder and rouge, you remind boys and men of the wrong kind of woman. The best time for cosmetics, if you must use them, is not during your school days.

5) Of course dress as becomingly as you can; but, in the main, rely for your attractiveness on your attainments, your gentle manners, your tact, and your active desire to render others comfortable and happy.

6) Cultivate charm, girls and boys. The best teacher of "How to be charming," is a really kind heart. Every one of you can have that.

7) If your heart is kind, you will learn to talk interestingly, and to listen intelligently.

8) Try, increasingly, to fit your word to your thought, and your thought to the fact. Being accurate does not mean being dull. Effective speech has much need for imagination, but very little for common slang. You understand and enjoy,--

These growing feathers plucked from Caesar's wing Will make him fly an ordinary pitch.

If, however, in slang phrase, a person spoke of "swiping Caesar's dope"; or of making Caesar "come off his perch," you would see that something fine in the thought had vanished. Practise expressing your ideas as attractively as possible.

9) Don't make cutting remarks about those who are absent; your wit may win a laugh, but its unkindness will cause others to like you the less. They will feel uncomfortable about what you may say of them in _their_ absence.

10) Whenever you are curious about the wonderful experience which we call "birth," think of it reverently, and go at once for information to your father or mother; if you lack these, to some high-minded friend much older than you. Otherwise, inclose a stamped envelope addressed to yourself in a letter to the Y.M.C.A. or the Y.W.C.A. or the Federal Bureau of Information, Washington, D.C., asking the title of the best book for a boy or a girl of your age, about the Beginnings of Life.

11) Never listen to explanations from the ignorant or the vulgar. Impure thoughts on this subject lead to the ruin of both body and spirit. Pure thoughts lead to the most precious possessions the world can give: father, mother, sister, brother, friend, husband, wife, children, home, country.

12) Be dependable. If any quality is _most_ desirable, it is that of dependableness. In school you have wonderful opportunities for cultivating it.

13) Every one of you should aim to become economically independent. To that end, decide on a vocation and plan your studies accordingly. If you wish to change later, very well; but always work towards a definite goal.

14) Avoid showing your displeasure with an acquaintance by not bowing. To do so is crude. A formal bow should be bestowed even on an enemy. "Cut" an acquaintance only when you have reason to believe him an utterly unfit companion.

15) "Make up" at once with a friend. "I'm sorry," helps. But in case this fails, find a way that succeeds. Don't lose your friend.

16) Be courteous, frank, and friendly. Don't try to be popular by attracting attention. Popularity which has to be sought is of short duration.

HOME

_Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam,-- His first, best country ever is at home._

--Goldsmith.

1) The finer you are, the more certain you will be to practice in your own home every courtesy which you know is due elsewhere. If you are not polite and considerate in your home, you cannot help showing that fact away from home.

2) The spirit that aims at giving pleasure rather than annoyance or pain will not wish to take any "vacation." At first, the courteous thought and act may require conscious effort. Persistent practice, however, crystallizes this conscious effort into confirmed habit; the result is, a _lady_, a _gentleman_.

End of Project Gutenberg's Manners And Conduct In School And Out, by Anonymous