CARING FOR THE NAILS
One hopes that it would be a difficult matter to find anybody so far oblivious of ordinary good manners as to clean his nails before others, but, let us blush to say it! one does meet many men who clean and pare their nails in the presence of family and intimate friends. Perhaps it is due to the fact that a woman does not carry a pocket-knife that she is seldom seen doing this. Her manicure instruments are kept upon her dressing-table, and it is in her own room that she performs this very necessary part of her toilet.
The ugly habit that many children acquire of biting the nails can be overcome by requiring them to wear gloves until they master it.
GOOD TASTE IN SPEECH
Young people should be taught that the question of age, in general conversation, is tabooed, that too much manner is as bad as too little, and that a good manner is even more to be desired than good manners. They should be instructed to say “Thank you,” not “Thanks,” to avoid “photo,” “auto,” etc., saying instead “photograph,” “automobile,” or better, “motor-car,” or simply “car.” “Crowd,” as “our crowd,” is very bad for “circle,” “set” or “group of friends.” A girl should never say “hello,” and no one should use it at the telephone. “Good morning,” “yes,” “well” or the mention of one’s name are courteous methods of beginning a telephone conversation. “Waistcoat” is to be preferred to “vest.” Modern usage trains children to say “Yes, mother,” “Yes, Aunt Clara,” “No, Miss Smith,” instead of “Yes, ma’am,” “No, ma’am,” as of old. Only in the remoter districts of the South does the earlier fashion survive among grown people where it must be admitted to have a quaint charm. When a child sneezes, if he is well taught he will say quietly, “Excuse me.”
A rudeness that a man will perpetrate in his own home, from which he would shrink in the home of another person, is that of wearing his hat in the presence of women. Every mother should train the small boy of the house to remove his hat as soon as he enters the front (or back) door. To do this will then become second nature, and it would not be probable that he could ever be guilty of the rudeness of standing in hall or parlor and talking to mother, sister or other feminine relative with his hat on his head. One mother at least positively refuses to hear what her little son has to say if he addresses her with his head covered. One may regret that with older men other women have not the like courage of their convictions. A man’s hat is so easily removed we wonder just why he should leave it on in the house, even if he is going out again in a moment. The man whose courtesy is not of the adjustable type will not do this, and these remarks are absolutely superfluous as far as he is concerned.
Nor will it be necessary to remind him to pick up the handkerchief, thimble, scissors or book that the woman in his presence lets fall,—even if she be his wife. To assist the feminine portion of humanity comes natural to the thoroughbred.