Because claims based on
distinctions of mere birth, fortune, or position, were found to be
injurious, many have gone to the extreme of inferring that all
distinctions, involving subordinations, are useless. Such would
wrongfully regard children as equals to parents, pupils to teachers,
domestics to their employers, and subjects to magistrates--and that,
too, in all respects.
The fact that certain grades of superiority and subordination are
needful, both for individual and public benefit, has not been clearly
discerned; and there has been a gradual tendency to an extreme of the
opposite view which has sensibly affected our manners. All the
proprieties and courtesies which depend on the recognition of the
relative duties of superior and subordinate have been warred upon; and
thus we see, to an increasing extent, disrespectful treatment of
parents, by children; of teachers, by pupils; of employers, by
domestics; and of the aged, by the young. In all classes and circles,
there is a gradual decay in courtesy of address.
In cases, too, where kindness is rendered, it is often accompanied
with a cold, unsympathizing manner, which greatly lessens its value;
while kindness or politeness is received in a similar style of coolness,
as if it were but the payment of a just due.
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