The Girl Wanted Part 14

An English writer in speaking of the j.a.panese says: "There must really have been a double portion of politeness bestowed upon these people who in the deepest domestic grief would smile and smile, so that a guest in the home might not be burdened with their sorrow. The habit is in striking contrast with the weeping and wailing, the mourning streamers, the hatbands, plumes, palls, black chargers, and funeral hea.r.s.es with which we struggle to stir the envy, if not the hearts of all beholders!"

In j.a.pan, so we are told, manners are included in the public teaching of morality. Among our western peoples our public school boys would deem it strange if a master gave them an hour's instruction in the correct manner of behaving toward their father and mother or sisters.

Yet such knowledge might be urgently needed and do good here as it does in j.a.pan where it is counted the most vital instruction of all.

Step by step the j.a.panese child is led along the course of behavior, learning how to stand up, sit down, bow, hang up its hat, and how to think of its parents, brothers and sisters, and of its country. Later on these lessons are repeated with ill.u.s.trations from short stories, and still later by incidents from actual history and the lives of great men of all countries. Before the end of the course of instruction is reached all manner of virtues and points of behavior have been introduced, such as patriotism, cleanliness, and (especially in the case of girls) the proper way of advancing and retiring, offering and accepting things, sleeping and eating, visiting, congratulating and condoling, mourning and holding public meetings. So the school course continues from year to year, the elementary school course lasting four years and the secondary course four years more, and leading the boys and girls up to the study of benevolence, their duty to ancestors, to other people's property, other people's honor, other people's freedom, and, finally, to self-discipline, modesty, dignity, dress, labor, the treatment of animals, and the due relations of men and women, both of whom are to be regarded equally as "lords"

of creation. From end to end of the long course of training, behavior rather than knowledge is insisted upon, even down to the tiniest detail of what our good great-grandmothers valued as deportment.

To such scrupulous deportment and close attention to minuteness of habit, some objection can be raised, perhaps. "Some men's behavior,"

said Bacon, "is like a verse wherein every syllable is measured," and he warned us that manners must be like apparel, "not too strait or point-device, but free for exercise or motion." However, it is better to err on the side of too much attention to our manners rather than to be thought careless of our persons and our behavior.

Civilized peoples cannot help but be concerned with manners, refinement, good breeding, and in a more minute sense, with the forms of etiquette. It is these things that distinguish civilization from savagery, and so unmistakably lift the cultured person above the one who does not see fit to cultivate the grace of gentility.

It has been truly said that we judge our neighbors severely by the breach of written or traditional laws, and choose our society, and even our friends, by the touchstone of courtesy. It is not an uncommon occurrence for a girl or a boy to win an advantageous position in life, not by superior mental or physical endowments but by a graciousness of manners that have smoothed for them the ways that lead to success.

For some quite unwarranted reason society seems to have taken the position that we have a right to expect more from our girls than from our boys in the matter of good manners. This, however, is not the view held by those who know the true meaning of good breeding. The demand that every boy shall be a gentleman is as firm and binding as is that which says that every girl must be a gentle woman and a thorough lady.

Every girl knows what is expected of her. Her parents, brothers, sisters, teachers, society and the world intend that she shall be good and gentle and gracious. They will be satisfied with nothing short of all that and it will be well for every girl to learn early in life to pursue only the paths that will lead into ways wherein these qualities of person and character may be found. So here and now it is timely to ask of the readers of these lines--

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

What are you going to do, girls, With the years that are hurrying on?

Do you mean to begin life's purpose to win In the freshness and strength of the dawn?

The builders who build in the morning, At even may joyfully rest, Their victories won, as they watch the glad sun Sink down in the beautiful west.

What are you going to do, girls, With time as it ceaselessly flows?

Are you molding a heart that will pleasures impart As perfume exhales from the rose?

Let all that is purest and grandest In duty's fair wreath be entwined; There is no other grace can illumine the face Like the charm of a beautiful mind.

A student of the subject of ethics must understand that the true spirit of good manners is very closely allied to that of good morals.

It has been pointed out that no stronger proof of this a.s.sertion is required than the fact that the Messiah himself, in his great moral teachings, so frequently touches upon the subject of manners. He teaches that modesty is the true spirit of good behavior, and openly rebukes the forward manner of His followers in taking the upper seats at the banquet and the highest seats in the synagogues.

The philosophers whose names are recorded in history, although they were, themselves, seldom distinguished for fine manners, did not fail to teach the importance of them to others. Socrates and Aristotle have left behind them a code of ethics that might easily be turned into a "Guide to the Complete Gentleman;" and Lord Bacon has written an essay on manners in which he reminds us that a stone must be of very high value to do without a setting.

The motive in cultivating good manners should not be shallow and superficial. Lord Chesterfield says that the motive that makes one wish to be polite is a desire to shine among his fellows and to raise one's self into a society supposed to be better than his own. It is unnecessary to state that Lord Chesterfield's good manners, fine as they appear, do not bear the true stamp of genuineness. There is not the living person back of them possessing heart and character. They seem to him, in a measure, what a fine gown does to the wax figure in the dressmaker's window. True manners mean more than mannerisms. They cannot be taught entirely from a book in which there are sets of rules to be observed on any and every occasion. They are rather a cultivated method of thinking and feeling and the forming of a character that knows, intuitively, the nice and kind and appropriate thing to do without reference to what a printed rule of conduct may set forth.

It is generally agreed that our best and only right motive in the cultivation of good manners should be to make ourselves better than we otherwise would be, to render ourselves agreeable to every one whom we may meet, and to improve, it may be, the society in which we are placed. With these objects in view, it is plainly as much a moral duty to cultivate one's manners as it is to cultivate one's mind, and no one can deny that we are better citizens when we observe the nicer amenities of society than we are when we pay no heed to them.

Lord Bacon says: "Many examples may be put of the force of custom, both upon mind and body. Therefore, since custom is the principle magistrate of man's life, let men by all means endeavor to obtain good customs. Certainly custom is most perfect when it beginneth in young years; this we call education, which is, in effect, but an early custom."

So we see that our true characters are but the expression of our habits and of our manners. And we see that only those habits that are formed in the early years of life seem to fit us perfectly and naturally throughout all the years.

It is an old saying and a homely one, but none the less true, that "it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." So it is hard to acquire in later life the manners and graces that escape us in youth.

Fortunate is the young girl who finds her lot is cast among the good influences of a cultured home. She has at hand the material from which to select all that she may need to build the fine character the world shall observe and admire. Such felicitous surroundings should teach her, first of all, to be very charitable and lenient toward others whose early years are lived among less advantageous surroundings. For if her culture does not in some ways influence and soften and modify her heart as well as her mind, its true purpose has been lost.

Those whose earlier years are spent amid surroundings not so favorable for the forming of golden habits, must strive all the harder for the prize of gentility which they would obtain. And in this very struggle against adverse circ.u.mstances will be engendered a strength and a spirit of self-reliance that will be likely to prove a worthy equivalent for the loss of a more kindly and propitious environment.

It is experience that develops character, and character is the one thing that distinguishes a life and makes it a definite and individual thing of supreme beauty.

The character that is the most laboriously built is the most enduring.

Golden habits that have been hammered out of our life experiences are to be implicitly relied upon. They have been tested at every point.

They have been shaped out of the very necessity of one's surroundings.

They are worth every effort that they have cost. The world will never know how much of its integrity, how much of its stability, how much of its beauty it owes to that which we are all so p.r.o.ne to call

DRUDGERY

Dull drudgery, "gray angel of success;"

Enduring purpose, waiting long and long, Headache or heartache, blent with sigh or song, Forever delving mid the strife and stress: Within the bleak confines of your duress Are laid the firm foundations, deep and strong, Whereon men build the right against the wrong,-- The toil-wrought monuments that lift and bless.

The coral reefs; the bee's o'erflowing cells; The Pyramids; all things that shall endure; The books on books wherein all wisdom dwells, Are wrought with plodding patience, slow and sure.

Yours the time-tempered fashioning that spells Of chaos, order, perfect and secure.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE ELIOT]

[Transcriber's Note: Sidenote quotations from the preceeding chapter are gathered in this section.]

I think that there is success in all honest endeavor, and that there is some victory gained in every gallant struggle that is made.--d.i.c.kens.

Every n.o.ble work is at first impossible.--Carlyle.

Truth is a strong thing, let man's life be true.--Browning.

Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous--a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.

--Carlyle.

Pa.s.s no day idly; youth does not return.--Chinese Proverb.

If, instead of a gem, or even a flower, we could cast the gift of a lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels must give.--George MacDonald.

Nothing can const.i.tute good breeding that has not good manners for its foundation.--Bulwer Lytton.

The common earth is common only to those who are deaf to the voices and blind to the visions which wait on it and make its flight a music and its path a light.--H. W. Mabie.

The truest lives are those that are cut rose-diamond-fashion, with many facets answering to the many-planed aspects of the world about them.--Oliver Wendell Holmes.

It seems to me there is no maxim for a n.o.ble life like this: Count always your highest moments your truest moments.--Phillips Brooks.

We only begin to realize the value of our possessions when we commence to do good to others with them.--Joseph Cook.

Believe me, girls, on the road of life you and I will find few things more worth while than comradeship.--Margaret E. Sangster.

Do n.o.ble things, not dream them, all day long, and so make life, death, and the vast forever, one grand, sweet song.--Charles Kingsley.

And to get peace, if you do _want_ it, make for yourself nests of pleasant thoughts.--Ruskin.

When one is so dedicated to his mission, so full of a great purpose that he has no thought for self, his life is one of unalloyed joy--the joy of self-sacrifice.--Lyman Abbott.

Morality is conformity to the highest standard of right and virtuous action, with the best intention founded on principle.--A. E. Winship.