YOUR BOY AND GOOD MANNERS.
By Margaret E. Sangster
[Margaret E. Sangster, in Woman's Home Companion.] MOTHERS make a mistake if they do not insist on good manners in the family. There is no reason why a boy should be boorish when his sister is polite, that a boy should be grumpy and awkward, ill at ease before strangers, and unacquainted with table etiquette when his sister possesses the savoir-faire of good breeding. We are talking about the growing boy. While he is still under your daily care, teach him to take off his hat when he meets you on the street, to rise when you enter the room, to place a footstool for his grandmother, and to carry any bundle or parcel not too heavy for small hands. A little fellow who is permitted to wear his hat in the house when only his11mother and sisters are present can not be expected to take it off because visitors have arrived. "Freddie, why do you stand there with your hat on?" asks the mother severely, when Freddie thus transgresses propriety, and the minister's wife or the lady from Baltimore or the aunt from Philadelphia is in the room. If Freddie had been taught always to stand bareheaded in the house, if it were his custom to pull off his hat whenever he met a lady or an older person of his own sex out-of-doors, the act would be automatic. Let your boy wait on you. Do not rush wildly to wait on him. Let him button your shoes, put on and take off your rubbers, perform little services at home. If you are wise, you will send him on errands to your friends, give him notes and messages to carry, and otherwise make him at ease when obliged to address some one he knows slightly.