When no knife is being used, the fork is held in the right hand, whether used “prongs down” to impale the meat or “prongs up” to lift vegetables.

To pile mashed potato and other vegetables on the convex side of the fork on top of the meat for two or more inches of its length, is a disgusting habit dear to school boys, and one that is more easily prevented than corrected.  In fact, taking a big mouthful (next to smearing his face and chewing with mouth open) is the worst offense at table.

When he has finished eating, he should lay his knife and fork close together, side by side, with handles toward the right side of his plate, the handles projecting an inch or two beyond the rim of the plate.  They must be placed far enough on the plate so that there is no danger of their over-balancing on to the table or floor when removed at the end of the course.

=OTHER TABLE MATTERS=

The distance from the table at which it is best to sit, is a matter of personal comfort.  A child should not be allowed to be so close that his elbows are bent like a grasshopper’s, nor so far back that food is apt to be spilled in transit from plate to mouth.  Children like to drink very long and rapidly, all in one breath, until they are pink around the eyes, and are literally gasping.  They also love to put their whole hands in their finger-bowls and wiggle their fingers.

A baby of two, or at least by the time he is three, should be taught to dip the tips of his fingers in the finger-bowl, without playing, draw the fingers of the right hand across his mouth, and then wipe his lips and fingers on the apron of his bib.

No small child can be expected to use a napkin instead of a bib.  No matter how nicely behaved he may be, there is always danger of his spilling something, some time.  Soft boiled egg is hideously difficult to eat without ever getting a drop of it down the front, and it is much easier to supply him with a clean bib for the next meal than to change his dress for the next moment.

Very little children usually have “hot water plates” that are specially made like a double plate with hot water space between, on which the meat is cut up and the vegetables “fixed” in the pantry, and brought to the children before other people at the table are served.  Not only because it is hard for them to be made to wait, and have their attention attracted by food not for them, but because they take so long to eat.  As soon as they are old enough to eat everything on the table, they are served, not last, but in the regular rotation at table in which they come.

=TABLE TRICKS THAT MUST BE CORRECTED=