The importance of good breeding can not be too diligently insisted upon. But what is good breeding? This is hardly to be understood as synonymous with good manners, though certainly involving them. Nor is it quite the same thing as exemplary or agreeable behavior, though likely to insure it. The latter is entirely the product of constant practice. Good manners, polished behavior, are the fruit of long discipline—perfection herein being reached only when these manners become habitual, natural, instinctive.
True courtesy, meanwhile, involves something deeper than mere manners or motions. It has its seat in the heart—its root in the moral nature. Fundamentally it consists in an inward kindly, neighborly, tender feeling toward every one, an interest in, and a desire to promote everybody’s welfare. Genuine courtesy, in a word, is born of love, springs from a benevolent disposition, a brotherly, chivalric impulse.
But what is good breeding? It consists in this inward principle of good will, and the outward habit of graceful demeanor combined—it consists in the aforesaid inward gracious impulse, rooted in the heart, and finding natural outward expression, or interpretation, through that disciplined elegance of deportment of which I have spoken. To the inward impulse, or sentiment, duly awakened, the outward, educated habit naturally, instinctively responds; and we have the deportment, or carriage, of the truly polished or accomplished gentleman or lady.
These twin principles, the inward nurture and the outward culture or training, working together, underlie what in the highest sense is to be understood as good breeding.
The practical value of the accomplishment under consideration can not well be overestimated. How charming, truly, this gentlemanly, lady-like conduct—this kindly, graceful, genial way of carrying one’s self socially. True courtesy, verily, is as delightful as a song. More eloquent is it, we may say, than any oratory. It is a fine art. Better still, it is Christian.
Is it not at once a privilege and a duty to promote the pleasure of others? As has just been suggested, how may we more effectually minister to the pleasure of others than by a charming behavior?
By cultivated, agreeable manners, moreover, we immensely enhance our personal influence—our power for good. A person of agreeable manners, by uniformly pleasing, will, naturally, always be popular—have hosts of friends. While, whatever one’s worth or attainments, we yet shun his presence if he be disagreeable or offensive in manner or speech; on the other hand, we instinctively covet the society of one who, in any way, delights us.
The irresistible charm of polished manners, even when cultivated solely for commercial purposes, is well illustrated by a remark said to have been made by Mr. Beecher concerning the clerks in the shops of Paris. They were, he said, so polite and engaging in their attentions that his first impression always was that he must have met them somewhere before. And who has not, indeed, under the influence of the benign spirit, the genial and engaging manners, the kindly and obliging offices of the accomplished tradesman, often felt his prejudices give way, his original intentions to purchase nothing yield, and, instead, a purpose gradually spring up in his mind to do just the opposite of what he originally designed?
Nothing can be more evident, therefore, than that this matter of manners and breeding is a no unimportant part of one’s education, constituting, truly, a no insignificant part of every true man’s character. How greatly, then, does that youth stand in his own light, who, for any cause, neglects his manners. The thoroughly courteous youth, other things equal, will surely win his way to success. Personally agreeable in all his ways, he conciliates opposing prejudices, charms the indifferent, and makes every one he meets his friend. The boorish man, on the contrary, as inevitably blocks his way to fortune by awakening, on the part of those with whom he has to do, only sentiments of aversion and disgust.
Girls, for some reason, seem to take more naturally and kindly to graceful ways, to gentle courtesies, than boys. Young America, we think, is characteristically boorish, if not clownish. The boy of the period manifestly places no adequate value on good manners. Doubtless this matter of breeding—this careful cultivation of a genial and amiable deportment—is sadly neglected in our day. The youth of our day should be taught not only that rudeness and vulgarity never pay; but that while awkwardness is disagreeable and burdensome, the slightest approach to rowdyism is detestable and unpardonable.