Perfect Behavior Part 14

Another effective way of teaching table manners to children consists in making up attractive games about the various lessons to be learned.

Thus, whenever you have guests for dinner, the children can play "b.o.n.e.r"

which consists in watching the visitor closely all during the meal in order to catch him in any irregularity in table etiquette. As soon as the guest has committed a mistake, the first Child to discover it points his finger at him and shouts, "Pulled a b.o.n.e.r, Pulled a b.o.n.e.r!" and the boy or girl who discovers the greatest number of "b.o.n.e.rs" during the evening is rewarded with a prize, based on the following table of points:

If the guest has dirty hands, 5 points.

If the guest uses wrong fork or spoon, 5 points.

If the guest chokes on bone, 8 points.

If the guest blows on soup, 5 points.

If the guest drops fork or spoon, 3 points.

If the guest spills soup on table, 10 points.

If the guest spills soup on self, 1 point.

Of course it is often well to tell the guests about the game in advance in order that they may not feel embarra.s.sed but will enter thoroughly into the spirit of this helpful sport.

A CHILD'S GARDEN OF ETIQUETTE

Children can also acquire knowledge more easily if it is imparted to them in the form of verse or easy rhymes, and many valuable facts about the dinner table can be embodied in children's verses. A few of these which I can remember from my own happy childhood are as follows:

Oh, wouldn't it be jolly To be a nice hors d'oeuvre And just bring joy to people Whom fondest you were of.

Soup is eaten with a spoon But not to any haunting tune.

Oysters live down in the sea In zones both temp. and torrid, And when they are good they are very good indeed, And when they are bad they are horrid.

My papa makes a lovely Bronx With gin so rare and old, And two of them will set you right But four will knock you cold.

The boys with Polly will not frolic Because she's eaten too much garlic.

Mama said the other day, "A little goes a long, long way."

A wind came up out of the sea And said, "Those dams are not for me."

Uncle Frank choked on a bone From eating shad au gratin Aunt Ethel said it served him right And went back to her flat in NEWARK (spoken) Poor Uncle Frank! (chanted)

I love my little finger bowl So full of late filet of sole.

Cousin George at lunch one day Remarked, "That apple looks quite tasty.

Now George a dentist's bill must pay Because he was so very hasty.

The proverb's teachings we must hold "All that glitters is not gold."

And mama said to George, "Oh, shoot, You've gone and ruined my gla.s.s fruit."

Jim broke bread into his soup, Jim knocked Mrs. Vanderbilt for a loop.

Kate drank from her finger bowl, Kate knocked Mrs. Vanderbilt for a goal.

Children who perform such tricks Are socially in Cla.s.s G-6.

ETIQUETTE IN THE SCHOOL

OF course, as the children become older, the instruction should gradually come to embrace all forms of correct behaviour, and the youthful games and rhymes should give way to the more complex and intricate problems of mature social etiquette. It is suggested that the teachings during this period may be successfully combined with the young gentleman's or lady's other schoolroom studies; in the case of mathematics, for example, the instruction might be handled in somewhat the following manner:

A Problem in Mathematics (7th grade)

A swimmer starts across a stream which is 450 yards wide. He swims for five minutes at the rate of three miles per hour, and for three minutes at the rate of four miles per hour. He then reaches the other bank, where he sees a young lady five feet ten inches tall, walking around a tree, in a circle the circ.u.mference of which is forty-two yards.

A. What is the diameter of the circle?

B. How fast is the current flowing in the stream?

C. At what point would the swimmer land if there were no current in the stream?

D. At what point does the swimmer actually land?

E. But suppose that he has no bathing suit on?

And so, when the young person has reached the age for his first formal dinner party, he will undoubtedly be able to handle the fundamentals of correct etiquette in a satisfactory manner. But, as in every sport or profession, there are certain refinements--certain niceties which come only after long experience--and it is with a view of helping the ambitious diner-out to master these more complex details, that I suggest that he study carefully the following "unwritten laws" which govern every dinner party.

In the first place, a guest is supposed tacitly to consent to the menu which the hostess has arranged, and the diner-out who makes a habit of saying "Squab, you know, never agrees with me--I wonder if I might have a couple of poached eggs," is apt to find that such squeamishness does not pay in the long run.

Practical jokes are never countenanced at a formal affair of this sort.

I do not mean that a certain amount of good-natured fun is out of place, but such "stunts" as pulling the hostess' chair out from under her--or gleefully kicking the s.h.i.+ns of your neighbor under the table and shouting "Guess who?"--are decidedly among the "non-ests" of correct modern dinner-table behaviour.

Then, too, it is now distinctly bad form to practise legerdemain or feats of sleight-of-hand at a dinner party. Time was when it was considered correct for a young man who could do card or other tricks to add to the gayety of the party by displaying his skill, but that time is past, and the guest of today, who thinks to make a "hit" by pulling a live rabbit or a potted plant from the back of the mystified hostess or one of the butlers, is in reality only making a "fool" of himself if he only knew it. The same "taboo" also holds good as concerns feats of juggling and no hostess of today will, I am sure, ever issue a second invitation to a young man who has attempted to enliven her evening by balancing, on his nose, a knife, a radish, a plate of soup and a lighted candle. "Cleverness" is a valuable a.s.set but only up to a certain point, and I know of one unfortunately "clever" young chap who almost completely ruined a promising social career by the unexpected failure of one of his pet juggling tricks and the consequent dumping of a large dish of mashed potatoes on the head of a vice-president of the Equitable Trust Company. Besides, people almost always distrust "clever" persons.

It does not "do," either, to "ride your hobby" at a dinner party, and the real truth as to the cause of the sudden social ostracism of young Freddie H----, a New York clubman of some years ago (now happily deceased), is that on one occasion this young fellow, who had developed a craze for marksmans.h.i.+p amounting almost to a mania, very nearly ruined a dinner party given by a prominent Boston society matron by attempting to shoot the whiskers off a certain elderly gentleman, who happened to be a direct descendant of John Smith and Priscilla Alden.

It might also be remarked that the possession of certain physical gifts--such as the ability to wriggle one's ears or do the "splits"--is in itself no "open sesame" to lasting social success. "Slow and sure"

is a good rule for the young man to follow, and although he may somewhat enviously watch his more brilliant colleagues as they gain momentary applause by their ability to throw their thumbs out of joint or squirt water through a hole in their front teeth, yet he may console himself with the thought that "the race is not always to the swift" and that "Rome was not built in a day." The gifts of this world have been distributed fairly equally, and you may be sure that the young girl who has been born a ventriloquist very likely is totally unable to spell difficult words correctly or carry even a simple tune. Ventriloquism, by the way, is also pa.s.sing out as a form of dinner party diversion, and it is no longer considered a priceless accomplishment to be able to make a dog bark or a baby cry under the hostess's chair.

CONVERSATION AT DINNER

Gradually, however, conversation--real conversation--is coming into its own as the favorite pastime of dinner guests, and the young man or lady who can keep the conversational "ball" rolling is coming more and more into demand. Good conversationalists are, I fear, born and not made--but by study and practise any ambitious young man can probably acquire the technique, and, with time, mould himself into the kind of person upon whom hostesses depend for the success of their party. As an aid in this direction I have prepared the following chart which I would advise all my readers to cut out and paste in some convenient place so that at their next dinner party it can be readily consulted.

STEWART'S LIGHTNING CALCULATOR OF DINNER TABLE CONVERSATION

This chart divides the dinner into its various courses, and under each course is given what I call an "opening sentence," together with your partner's probable reply and the topic which is then introduced for discussion. And, most valuable of all, under each such topic I have listed certain helpful facts which will enable you to prolong the conversation along those lines until the arrival of the next course, and the consequent opening of another field for discussion. The chart follows:

I. c.o.c.ktails.

You say to the partner on your right: "What terrible gin!" She (he) replies: "Perfectly ghastly." This leads to a discussion of: Some Aspects of Alcohol. Helpful Facts:

1. An oyster soaked in alcohol becomes quite rigid in eleven minutes.

2. Senator Volstead was born Sept. 4, 1869.

3. Alcohol, if taken in too great quant.i.ties, often produces internal disorders.

II. Oysters.

You say to the partner on your right: "Think of being an oyster!"