All these things should be taught to children, gradually, and with
great patience and gentleness. Some parents, with whom good manners
are a great object, are in danger of making their children perpetually
uncomfortable, by suddenly surrounding them with so many rules that
they must inevitably violate some one or other a great part of the
time. It is much better to begin with a few rules, and be steady and
persevering with these, till a habit is formed, and then take a few
more, thus making the process easy and gradual. Otherwise, the temper
of children will be injured; or, hopeless of fulfilling so many
requisitions, they will become reckless and indifferent to all.
If a few brief, well-considered, and sensible rules of good manners
could be suspended in every school-room, and the children all required
to commit them to memory, it probably would do more to remedy the
defects of American manners and to advance universal good-breeding
than any other mode that could be so easily adopted.
But, in reference to those who have enjoyed advantages for the
cultivation of good manners, and who duly estimate its importance, one
caution is necessary.
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