behavior and are considered an acquisition to any gathering. They are
not embarrassed by the awkward slips and breaks which are so mortifying
to those who only wear their company manners on special occasions.

A stranger would almost think this home was a school of good breeding,
and it is a real treat to visit these people. It is true the parents
in this family have the advantage of generations of fine breeding and
Southern hospitality back of them, which gives the children a great
natural advantage. There is an atmosphere of chivalry and cordiality
in this household which is really refreshing.

Many parents seem to expect that their children will pick up their good
manners outside of the home, in school, or while visiting. This is a
fatal mistake. Every home should be a school of good manners and good
breeding. The children should be taught that there is nothing more
important than the development of an interesting personality, an
attractive presence, and an ability to entertain with grace and ease.
They should be taught that the great object of life is to develop a
superb personality, a noble manhood and womanhood.

There is no art like that of a beautiful behavior, a fine manner, no
wealth greater than that of a pleasing personality.

CHAPTER LIX

MOTHER

"All that I am or hope to be," said Lincoln, after he had become
President, "I owe to my angel mother."

"My mother was the making of me," said Thomas Edison, recently. "She
was so true, so sure of me; and I felt that I had some one to live for;
some one I must not disappoint."

"All that I have ever accomplished in life," declared Dwight L. Moody,
the great evangelist, "I owe to my mother."

"To the man who has had a good mother, all women are sacred for her
sake," said Jean Paul Richter.

The testimony of great men in acknowledgment of the boundless debt they
owe to their mothers would make a record stretching from the dawn of
history to to-day. Few men, indeed, become great who do not owe their
greatness to a mother's love and inspiration.

How often we hear people in every walk of life say, "I never could have
done this thing but for my mother. She believed in me, encouraged me
when others saw nothing in me."

"A kiss from my mother made me a painter," said Benjamin West.

A distinguished man of to-day says: "I never could have reached my
present position had I not known that my mother expected me to reach
it. From a child she ma