would necessarily be checks on the way. Knighthood was far off,
but it could not be caught sight of too early as an ideal, and it was
characteristic of the consideration of the Church that, in the scheme of
manners over which she held sway, the first training of her knights was
intrusted to women. For women set the standard of manners in every age,
if a child has not learnt by seven years old how to behave towards them
it is scarcely possible for him to learn it at all, and it is by women
only that it can be taught. The little _damoiseaux_ would have perfect
and accomplished manners for their age when they left the apartments of
the ladies at seven years old; it was a matter of course that they would
fall off a good deal in their next stage. They would become "pert," as
pages were supposed to be, and diffident as esquires, but as knights
they would come back of themselves to the perfect ways of their
childhood with a grace that became well the strength and self-possession
of their knighthood. We have no longer the same formal and ceremonial
training; it is not possible in our own times under the altered
conditions of life, yet it commands attention for those who have at
heart the future well-being of the boys and girls of to-day. The
fundamental facts upon which manners are grounded remain the same. These
are, some of them, worth consideration:--

1. That manners represent a great deal more than mere social
observances; they stand as the outward expression of some of the deepest
springs of conduct, and none of the modern magic of philanthropy--
altruism, culture, the freedom and good-fellowship of democracy,
replaces them, because, in their spirit, manners belong to religion.

2. That manners are a matter of individual training, so that they could
never be learnt from a book. They can scarcely be taught, except in
their simplest elements, to a class or school as a whole, but the
authority which stands nearest in responsibility to each child, either
in the home circle or at school, has to make a special study of it in
order to teach it manners. The reason of this is evident. In each nature
selfishness crops out on one side rather than another, and it is this
which has to be studied, that the forward may be repressed, the shy or
indolent stimulated, the dreamy quickened into attention, and all the
other defective sides recognized and taken, literally, _in hand_, to be
modelled to a better form.

3. That training in mann