“What is the difference between good form, etiquette, and ethics?”
Good form contains the bare principle, etiquette applies the principle, and ethics brings conscience into the practise of it. It is possible for etiquette to violate every principle of both good form and ethics; but good form and ethics will always agree when they understand each other, and will make a safe environment in which any child, youth, man, or woman may live, love, and labor.
Nowhere is the observance of good form more necessary than during a journey. It is especially a safeguard to the young and inexperienced against the designing and vicious.
The rule is that the traveling dress should be of the most unobtrusive character, of some neutral color, with no showy embellishments on hat or gown, something which can be readily shaken or brushed free of dust; and that every movement should be such as to avoid attracting attention; that no acquaintance should be formed with strangers, unless it be under circumstances that could admit of no possible question.
It is bad form to stand and look about in a waiting-room, or to promenade the platform, to turn the head and gaze at people, or to ask questions of any but officials. These things, trivial as they may seem, carefully observed, help to keep a hedge of safety about the young woman or boy who is obliged to travel alone, while only a slight departure from these rules will often open the way for annoyance, and even dangers such as we can not discuss in these pages.
In the matter of asking questions, the prospective traveler should inform herself concerning everything she will need to know of her route, etc., as thoroughly as possible, before she starts, so as to make questioning unnecessary. It is dangerous to depend even upon men in uniform for information beyond certain narrow limits. Do not expect a local ticket agent, nor yet a railroad conductor, brakeman, or Pullman car porter to know what every passenger may need to know in order to reach his destination.
The man in uniform is responsible for knowing one or two things and seeing that his own end of the work is kept well in hand. Beyond that he has no official responsibility, and is often as likely to abuse confidence, and betray trusting ignorance, as any other man.
If you are a young girl traveling alone, compelled to make a transfer across the city, never take a carriage or cab, but the common public omnibus. If you have a tedious wait before you, do not try to relieve it by sauntering about the depot or street, or any public places. Settle yourself down with determination to patiently and quietly endure in the depot, unless you know some suitable place to which you can go and spend the time. Do not ask, receive, or act upon any advice from any strangers as to hotels, or any other places where you could spend the hours more comfortably. Accept no invitations excepting from well-known friends, and even then not to any ice-cream parlors or restaurants. Nothing short of a family invitation to some good home should turn you for a moment from your purpose to keep closely to the line of travel, and endure hardness with good practical common sense.
Children should be taught in the regular routine of home life how to entertain and how to be entertained; how to avoid the necessity of putting on “company manners” by always in all relations of life observing those principles of politeness which are summed up in the gospel as expressed in that law of liberty known as the Golden Rule.