[QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG MEN.]
ON COURTESY TO WOMEN AND GIRLS.
omebody once said that you could tell how civilized a nation was at any one time by learning how that nation treated its women at that particular period. You go to some of the towns in Europe to-day, and you find women doing the hard labor, drawing carts beside dogs, carrying bundles and heavy articles about. Go among savages in Africa, and you find women doing the hard labor of life, the men reserving for themselves the hunting, the loafing, and the fighting. As nations grow more civilized, the women become more the objects of care and solicitude, and in England and the United States to-day they are treated with an amount of forethought and attention never known before. And yet even in America to-day many a young man, who would instantly deny any charge of discourtesy to a lady, will do little things, half unconsciously, that are neither courteous nor becoming a gentleman.
This comment does not refer to such acts as taking off one's hat to every woman or girl one knows, nor to any of the ordinary acts of politeness. Such are understood in these days. It does refer, however, to slight matters that mark the man or boy who knows what good manners are, and who invariably bears himself well in the presence of others. Such a boy never speaks to a girl or woman, if she is standing, without rising himself. I saw at a large restaurant, a short time ago, a man approach three women and three men who were eating supper. No one of the three men knew the fourth personally, but as he approached and spoke to a friend among the women, all three arose, and remained standing until the new-comer was gone. It was not a mark of courtesy to the fourth man. It was a signification to the three ladies that for the time being the new arrival was allowed the privilege of speaking to any of them if they chose to invite it. That is merely an example of a small point, which, perhaps, was not necessary, but the action not only pleased the women, but certainly stamped the men as gentlemen.
Many a boy fails to rise from his chair when his mother enters the room, while he would get up at once if a stranger entered, and one would suppose that his mother, who is more to him than the rest of womankind put together, should, to say the least, have from him the same marks of courtesy as strangers. In fact, you can tell a boy's character pretty accurately by the way in which he treats his mother; for as a mother has probably done and will do more for her son than any other woman—with perhaps one exception—will ever do, so he ought, in return, to treat her as his most valuable possession. His courtesy, his chivalrous and knightly bearing towards her are never thrown away.
She sees it all, and thinks more of it than any one else, and he need never fear that his thoughtfulness is thrown away. Perhaps, occasionally, such conduct may to a certain extent go unnoticed by some other women, but by his mother never.
In the same way one's conduct to one's sister is a test of good breeding. Sisters are not mothers, by any means, but still they demand courtesy from their brothers. Perhaps a sister can be pretty hard to get on with at times, but nevertheless she is a woman, and she can do certain things without any fear of retaliation, because the nobility of the man in the boy is bound to respect the woman in his sister.