Memory Monday: Teaching Table Manners to Children

My Great-grandparents

TEACHING TABLE MANNERS TO CHILDREN

Teaching manners has always been important. As I have gathered information from the 1800s for my historical website and my “reprinted” historical magazine, I have come across many books on etiquette. The following is from The Ladies Repository, dated 1865. Knowing from raising my own children, some of the easiest ways to teach are in rhyme. My great-grandmother (pictured above with her husband and children) was born in 1862. I wonder if her mother taught her the rhyme below, or if she taught it to her children.

In silence I must take my seat;

And give God thanks before I eat;

Must for my food in patience wait

Till I am asked to hand my plate;

I must not scold, nor whine, nor pout,

Nor move my chair or plate about;

With knife, or fork, or napkin ring,

I must not play—nor must I sing;

I must not speak a useless word;

For children must be seen—not heard;

I must not talk about my food,

Nor fret if I don't think it good;

My mouth with food I must not crowd,

Nor while I'm eating speak aloud;

Must turn my head to cough or sneeze,

And when I ask, say, "If you please;"

The table-cloth I must not spoil,

Nor with my food my fingers soil:

Must keep my seat when I am done,

Nor round the table sport or run:

When told to rise, then I must put

My chair away with noiseless foot,

And lift my heart to God above,

In praise for all his wondrous love.

I know that when my daughter was little, we read the book, I Live in the City ABC, so many times that we could recite it from memory—as we often did when we were driving around doing errands. Maybe my great-great-grandmother or my great-grandmother said it enough to their children that they could recite it when they were out in the garden picking beans or hoeing weeds.