toward certain children with whom he had close relations. A A "warm birch" applied in the early stages of that terrible tragedy, the Salem Witchcraft, to Ann Putnam, the protagonist of that drama, would doubtless so quickly have ended it in its incipiency as to obliterate it entirely from

the pages of

history.

CHAPTER XI

I

MANNERS AND COURTESY

what's true,

A child should always say
And speak when he is spoken to,`
And behave mannerly at table,

At least as far as he is able.

A Child's Garden of Verse.

Robert Louis Stevenson, 1895.

N ancient days in England, manners and cour

tesy, manly exercises, music and singing, knowl

edge of precedency and rank, heraldry and ability to carve, were much more important elements in education than Latin and philosophy. Children were sent to school, and placed in great men's houses to learn courtesy and the formalities of high life.

Of all the accomplishments and studies of the Squire as recounted by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, but one would now be taught in English college-music. Of all which were taught, courtesy was deemed the most important.

"Aristotle the Philosopher

this worthye sayinge writ That manners in a chylde

are more requisit

211

Than

Than playinge on instrumentes
and other vayne pleasure;

For virtuous manners

is a most precious treasure."

The importance given to outward forms of courtesy was a natural result of the domination for centuries of the laws of chivalry and rules of heraldry. But they were something more than outward show. Emerson says, "The forms of politeness universally express benevolence in a superlative degree." They certainly developed a regard for others which is evinced in its highest and best type in the character of what we term a gentleman and gentlewoman.

It is impossible to overestimate the value these laws of etiquette, these conventions of customs had at a time when neighborhood life was the whole outside world. Without them life would have proved unendurable. Even savage nations and tribes have felt in their isolated lives the need of some conventions, which with them assume the form of taboos, superstitious observances, and religious restrictions.

The laws of courtesy had much influence upon the development of the character of the colonial child. Domestic life lacked many of the comforts of to-day, but save in formality it did not differ in essential elements from our own home life. Every

Sign