The handling began early in days of chivalry, no time was lost, because there would necessarily be checks on the way.  Knighthood was far off, but it could not be caught sight of too early as an ideal, and it was characteristic of the consideration of the Church that, in the scheme of manners over which she held sway, the first training of her knights was intrusted to women.  For women set the standard of manners in every age, if a child has not learnt by seven years old how to behave towards them it is scarcely possible for him to learn it at all, and it is by women only that it can be taught.  The little damoiseaux would have perfect and accomplished manners for their age when they left the apartments of the ladies at seven years old; it was a matter of course that they would fall off a good deal in their next stage.  They would become “pert,” as pages were supposed to be, and diffident as esquires, but as knights they would come back of themselves to the perfect ways of their childhood with a grace that became well the strength and self-possession of their knighthood.  We have no longer the same formal and ceremonial training; it is not possible in our own times under the altered conditions of life, yet it commands attention for those who have at heart the future well-being of the boys and girls of to-day.  The fundamental facts upon which manners are grounded remain the same.  These are, some of them, worth consideration:—­

1.  That manners represent a great deal more than mere social observances; they stand as the outward expression of some of the deepest springs of conduct, and none of the modern magic of philanthropy—­ altruism, culture, the freedom and good-fellowship of democracy, replaces them, because, in their spirit, manners belong to religion.

2.  That manners are a matter of individual training, so that they could never be learnt from a book.  They can scarcely be taught, except in their simplest elements, to a class or school as a whole, but the authority which stands nearest in responsibility to each child, either in the home circle or at school, has to make a special study of it in order to teach it manners.  The reason of this is evident.  In each nature selfishness crops out on one side rather than another, and it is this which has to be studied, that the forward may be repressed, the shy or indolent stimulated, the dreamy quickened into attention, and all the other defective sides recognized and taken, literally, in hand, to be modelled to a better form.

3.  That training in manners is not a short course but a long course of study, a work of patience on both sides, of gentle and most insistent handling on one side and of long endurance on the other.  There are a very few exquisite natures with whom the grace of manners seems to be inborn.  They are not very vigorous, not physically robust; their own sensitiveness serves as a private tutor or monitor to tell them at the right moment what others feel,