1 "Manners are the shadows of virtue.". - SYDNEY SMITH. "High thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy." SIDNEY. "The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding should recall, however remotely, the grandeur of our destiny."- EMERSON. "Love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." - ST. PAUL. "Who misses or who wins the prize? Go, lose or conquer as you can; But if you fail, or if you rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman." THACKERAY. "How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, "The appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behavior in them. For this reason I shall ever, as far as I am able, give my nephews such impressions as shall make them value themselves rather as they are useful to others, than as they are conscious of merit in themselves." - THE TAT LER, No. 207. III. MANNERS. PERHAPS there is no better starting-point in this subject than the one most remote from its real centre, our national manners. The foreign critics tell us that we are rapidly improving in our behavior; we are too conscious of the need to resent the patronizing comment, and eagerly wait for the sure coming of that type of manners — higher than has yet been realized when our institutions have fully ripened the character of the people. In the externals of behavior we are in advance of the last generation. The immense development in taste and art that has come about through foreign travel and world-expositions has a corresponding development in manners. Uncouthness of dress, roughness of speech, and the general barbarity of manners that once prevailed in large sections of the country have largely Is passed away. The salutations, respect for another's personality, the care of the person, the tones of the voice, and the use of language, all are better than they were. there also an improvement in feeling and mutual relation? The external, in the main, is indicative of what is within. Great masses of people are not hypocrites. The kindlier address shows a kinder spirit and a truer sense of equality. The deference of a century ago was the offspring of aristocracy; that, indeed, has passed away with the dying out of its source. But if we no longer bow down before our fellows, we entertain for them a more rational respect. To go a little closer into the matter, the masses have greatly improved in manners, but the class which used to be regarded as aristocratic and especially well-bred has deteriorated, as was to be expected. The withdrawal of the deference of the lower classes, as our institutions began to be felt, threw it into confusion. The old-time aristocrat and a noble figure he was is consciously out of place and relations; his manners suffer in consequence, and now, like Portia's English suitor, he "gets his beha vior everywhere.” us. But we must not infer that we are yet a people of refined manners. Dr. Bushnell, many years ago, said that emigration tended to barbarism. We are a nation of emigrants; the greater part of us, for two hundred years, have lived in the woods, and the shadows of primeval forests still overhang There must be more intelligence, more culture, a more evenly distributed wealth, a denser population, and a fuller realization of our national idea, which is also the Christian idea, personality, - before we can claim to be a well-bred people. In Europe, the good manners of the great percolate down to the masses. One consequently hears and sees there a delicacy of behavior and gentleness of address not common here. It is, however, largely external and a matter of imitation. We have few such outstanding examples, and whatever of attainment we have is genuine and from within. We are destined to see on this continent a form of manners more genuinely refined and noble than the world has yet known. Just now we are in an open place between the going out of aristocratic or feudal habits and ways and the coming in of a culture and behavior based on equality |