The School of Manners

A friend included in our local homeschool group newslestter some quotes from "The School of Manners or Rules for Children's Behaviour", published in 1701. I can't resist sharing a few ...

• Ask not for any thing (at the meal table), but tarry till it be offered thee.
• Spit not, cough not, nor blow thy nose at table if it may be avoided, but if there be necessity, do it aside and without much noise.
• Stuff not thy mouth so as to fill thy cheeks, be content with smaller mouthfuls.
  
• Throw not anything under the table.
• In company, spit not in the room, but in a corner, and rub it out with thy foot, or rather go out and do it abroad.
  
• Laugh not in or at thine own story, wit or jest.
  
• If thy superior speak anything wherein thou knowest he is mistaken, correct not, nor contradict him, nor grin at the hearing of it, but pass over the error without notice or interruption.
  
• If thy superior be relating a story, say not, "I have heard it before", but attend as if it were to thee altogether new; if he tell it not right, snigger not.

I should have known better than to read these to Star. She was later found being "good mannered" in the kitchen ... spitting in the corner and rubbing it out with her foot.