hese things at school." Presumably they do not mean
from the teachers. It is "from the other children," who seem to be a
most injurious class of society. It is their influence which makes
_our_ children so rude and so ungrammatical; and, strangely enough,
though these other children never dine with our children, so subtle and
far-reaching is their baleful influence that our children's defective
manners at the table are directly traceable to the same evil source.

Granted, a measure of truth in the charge; for large mirthfulness and
large imitation lead children to do things "just for fun," which all
the time they know better than to persist in. But, as a fact,
demonstrated by observation, a very small percentage of the children
who are habituated to correct behavior at home are ever seriously
affected by outside influences. A superficial effect may show in
little things; but such lapses of speech or manner are transient, and
in no degree control the development of the child when his home
training is irreproachable. On the other hand, the efforts of an
untiring teacher, laboring five hours a day to teach correct language
and enunciation, may be of little permanent value, when the remaining
hours of the day are spent in a home where the English grammar hourly
meets a violent death.

And what is true of grammar is equally true of morals and manners. The
school and society may be measurably influential; but the home casts
the deciding vote. And when people note the manners--good or bad--of
your boys and girls, they do not ask, "What school do they attend?"
"What children do they associate with?" but, "_Whose children are
they?_"

Would you have them mannerly? Teach them; by precept, certainly; but
above all things, by example.

SOCIAL YOUNG AMERICA

Henry the Fifth, of England, disposed of certain troublesome
restrictions of etiquette by remarking that "nice customs curtsey to
great kings:" but in the twentieth century, customs are more likely to
curtsey to the common sense of the community at large.

City codes and country customs present some contradictious. The exact
rules of etiquette in social formalities, which are derived from the
established usage of fashionable circles in the city, are constantly
subject to modifications when they are applied under the conditions
found in rural neighborhoods. This is plainly illustrated in the
comminglings of social "Young America." Whereas the city-bred gi