Good manners have been supposed to be a peculiar mark of gentility, and that the individual exhibiting them has been born in some upper class of society. But the poorest classes may exhibit good manners towards each other, as well as the richest. One may be polite and kind towards others, without a penny in the purse. Politeness goes very far; yet it costs nothing. It is the cheapest of commodities. But we want to be taught good manners, as well as other things. Some happy natures are “to the manner born.” But the bulk of men need to be taught manners, and this can only be efficiently done in youth.
We have said that working men might study good manners with advantage. Why should they not respect themselves and each other? It is by their demeanour towards each other—in other words, by their manners—that self-respect and mutual respect are indicated. We have been struck by the habitual politeness of even the poorest classes on the Continent. The workman lifts his cap and respectfully salutes his fellow-workman in passing. There is no sacrifice of manliness in this, but rather grace and dignity. The working man, in respecting his fellow, respects himself and his order. There is kindness in the act of recognition, as well as in the manner in which it is denoted.
We might learn much from the French people in this matter. They are not only polite to each other, but they have a greater respect for property. Some may be disposed to doubt this, after the recent destruction of buildings in Paris. But the Communists must be regarded as altogether exceptional people; and to understand the French character, we must look to the body of the population scattered throughout France. There we find property much more respected by the people than amongst ourselves. Even the beggar respects the fruit by the roadside, although there is nobody to protect it. The reason of this is, that France is a nation of small proprietors,—that property is much more generally diffused and exposed,—and parents of even the lowest class educate their children in carefulness of and fidelity to the property of others.
This respect for property is also accompanied with that respect for the feelings of others, which constitutes what is called Good Manners. This is carefully inculcated in the children of all ranks in France. They are very rarely rude. They are civil to strangers. They are civil to each other. Mr. Laing, in his “Notes of a Traveller,” makes these remarks: “This deference to the feelings of others in all that we do is a moral habit of great value when it is generally diffused, and enters into the home training of every family. It is an education both of the parent and child in morals, carried on through the medium of external manners.... It is a fine distinction of the French national character, and of social economy, that practical morality is more generally taught through manners, among and by the people themselves, than in any country in Europe."[1]