Part 2

There are a few principles which are always a safeguard and defense to those who will be controlled by them, which if woven into familiar thought will render correctness in the details of conduct spontaneous and inevitable. And yet circumstances may modify this fact. It is sometimes slow work to get hold of a principle; and some specific teaching as to just what to do, and what not to do, will often be a great help to even those who are pure of heart, and have a mind to avoid the appearance of evil.

Every detail of life must take note of the fact that the human unit called man was created male and female, and must begin his earthly career as boy and girl, each at best but a half of this unit. This, with many correlated facts, must be kept before us in the process of training. Up to a certain period boys and girls can play together and associate with perfect unconsciousness of any difference between them, but the careful parent and teacher must be alert with reference to the time when nature awakens, after which their association can only be safely on two lines,—Christian work and general good fellowship; and these always under the chaperonage of some reliable and mature woman. This is especially necessary in all lines of work to which Christian young people in these days of special activity among the youth would be urged, such as missionary meetings, cottage meetings, Sabbath-school, house-to-house visiting. Without such chaperonage, boys and girls, young men and young women, should never go together, even in Christian work; but girls by themselves, and boys by themselves.

This is made necessary by the fact that nature has been perverted, that the enemy of all purity has taken possession of every avenue of thought, even from the cradle, and has filled the mind of childhood with unprofitable imaginings, for which the only cure is the knowledge of the truth pure and simple, adapted to their comprehension, and such opportunities for association as shall make them mutual helps without stimulating that self-consciousness that leads to curiosity and evil suggestion.

Any allusion which would give the children an idea of the anxious thoughts which you entertain for them should be studiously avoided. Teach and practise them in all which constitutes true decorum while they are still too young to understand its significance and necessity, so that when the time comes that the youth shall need “good form” habits for the protection of a good name, he will have them already, as a part of that second nature which good breeding produces. The first teaching will naturally apply without any reference to sex differences, to that conduct which should prevail between a company of girls and boys each in companies by themselves.

First, as to manners in public. Boys and girls should grow up with the idea that it is a great deal nicer for girls to keep each other company, and for boys to do the same, than for boys and girls to go together. Teach your boy to protect the girls of his acquaintance from any annoyance which his presence anywhere could produce. Make him understand that carefulness in this regard is the beginning of genuine manliness. Teach both boys and girls to be reserved and modest in their deportment toward all other boys and girls alike, boys toward boys, and girls toward girls. That boisterous familiarity among boys together is so unbecoming as always to breed contempt.

By this I would not have my readers infer that good form in behavior must in the least interfere with the “good times” that children and youth ought to enjoy. It does not prevent that happy freedom which can alone make real “play” possible. Running, jumping, climbing trees, shouting, hallooing, can all be done without any violation of a single principle of good form as applied to childhood life. The trouble is that many parents and teachers have the idea that any form of conduct to be “good” must be grown-up and gray-headed, whereas one of the very worst of bad forms is for a child to appear old. Good form, the genuine sort, like every other good thing, will admit of any conduct which will promote strength of body, soul, and spirit. Real strength, which must always include the whole being, is perfectly safe, and a perpetual source of joy in the Holy Guest. Many popular plays and games, however, are so far removed from every principle which should control action and association, that they can not be indulged without rudeness, brutality, and in many cases that sort of familiarity which leads to immorality, and should be thrown into the heap with all other bad manners.

It is bad form for two, three, or more persons to walk in an irregular huddle on the street, as children sometimes do, going backward facing the rear of the procession in order that conversation may be carried on. Even young children should be taught that the running, leaping, jumping, loud talking and laughter, which would be all right in the back yard, on some playground, or in the open country, is never to be indulged on the public street; that the moment the street is reached the deportment should become quiet, and have thoughtful reference to the comfort of the public.

They should understand the obvious reasons for this: A running child is practically a blind and deaf one; he must have plenty of room, or he will be almost sure to collide with something or somebody; in town will be in danger of teams or cars. The rule for the street should be: Steady, quiet, careful, eyes to the front, no loud talking or laughing, no play, no swapping of knives, no reading, no chewing or eating, no clearing the throat or spitting if it can possibly be avoided. If this last is impossible, let it be done in the most unobtrusive manner, behind a kerchief; in short, let nothing be done which would inevitably draw the attention of passers-by, causing special notice and comment.

The craze for notoriety manifests itself in a thousand repulsive forms of street behavior, through which the grossest temptations attack the untaught and careless; and those parents who would protect their children from many nameless dangers must teach them good form as applied to street life.

Nowhere does good breeding reveal itself more quickly than in the quiet, unobtrusive “I-am-minding-my-own-business” air of the girl or boy, who, with an armful of books held closely, looking neither to the right nor to the left, clips to and from school; or if walking and talking together by twos, it is with steady carriage and voices so modulated that no passer-by will overhear a word, nor think of being jostled.

Children should be taught by both word and example that when they are about to meet any person on the street they should fall back into single file at the right, while still far enough distant as to obviate all danger of interference. Who has not found himself caught on the street in a mob of schoolgirls or boys, often both together, who needlessly monopolize the walk, as with loud talking, wrangling, jesting, jaws working at both words and gum, they publish as upon the housetop the utter lack of good form in the homes from which they have come? The first blame for this disgusting spectacle always falls upon the children; but in truth it all belongs to the homes out of which they have tumbled pell-mell without that instruction and those fixed habits which would have insured decorum and decency.

Every child should be taught to give courteous recognition to acquaintances. The boys should lift the cap to each other as well as to their elders, always to father and mother, if they chance to meet them on the street; and the girls by some modest feminine salute of bow or word. But some one may object that it seems “far-fetched” to train boys to this formal mannerism. To which I reply in the old adage that the “boy is father of the man.” The man in every relation in life will follow the lead of boyish habits unless indeed in the interests of some great conviction or self-interest he makes all things new. This can be done, but even then the traces of early habits will often remain to bring shame and confusion at some critical point when pleasure or profit are at stake.

III.

The social life of boys and girls should be recognized and provided for as a department of the school in which they shall become educated in those things which make for social righteousness and purity later on. As boys treat each other, they will, as a rule, treat each other as men. As boys and girls behave toward each other, so will they as a rule behave as men and women. Courtesy is necessary to the highest degree of success in any enterprise. The boy who is habitually courteous toward other boys will be successful in winning his way as a man among men with any important message with which he may be commissioned; and if he is so instructed that he is gentle, considerate, and true to his mother, sisters, and girl associates, he will be a safe friend as a man, a representative of Christ to his own wife and children, and help to make that home which must stand as a witness for God in the last days.

The children in whose interests I am writing must be in a peculiar sense messengers of light to the world. They will be on the field of action in the very last scenes of the earth’s history, when souls must be snatched by a power of which we have little comprehension—the power to win quickly; the power to reveal the truth as in a flash of light, so that it will be recognized at sight by the bewildered, desperate soul that has awakened at the last moment to its peril and privilege, and with scant space for repentance and cleansing, cries out for help; and the Holy Spirit must find somewhere those whom he can train and use for the service which in those days must be done to reach every creature, high as well as low, with the gospel.

The truth is worthy of the best possible investment. Its messengers should be free from every offensive habit, custom, and manner—thoroughly equipped in all that is most graceful, most scholarly, as genuine Christian scholarship goes; most refined, most chaste, and agreeable in both public and private intercourse. They should be the most suitably, and that means the most simply and tastefully, dressed.

The theory of the world considers as “good form” that each individual should dress according to the class which he represents; and the Christian who conscientiously and consistently dresses as his name “Christian” would indicate that he should dress, will be respected by even the frivolous “butterfly of fashion,” and will stand a good chance of a hearing by that same “butterfly,” even in the most solemn message, provided it is accompanied with the simple, easy courtesy of good breeding, such as can not be suddenly assumed “for effect,” but which is the result of life-long training. There are honest souls among so-called “social butterflies,” and some workers must be trained to go out into the highways where they flit away their hopeless lives, as well as into the byways and hedges, where social wrecks are huddled in darkness and desolation.

The men and women who must do this work are now boys and girls in our homes or schools, and very much which shall determine the scope of their influence depends upon what the Spirit of God shall find available in them for use. A truly well-trained, courteous man or woman can be used anywhere, among any people; while the uncouth and untrained must be kept in a limited sphere. The truly cultured man or woman whose every gift and grace has been sanctified and consecrated, will be more sure to know what to do in the homes of the wretched and the haunts of vice for the alleviation of distress and the saving of a soul than those who have never thought it worth while to cultivate winsome qualities.

God has so arranged human life and relations that even the most aristocratic and exclusive must take note of, and plan for doing, the same every-day things that are alike common to all; and the only question of deportment which can ever come between the uncouth and the refined, concerns the methods of doing these same most common things.

The mother in the humblest home, with the most meager opportunities, if she has a high enough appreciation of the mission to which her child is called as a representative of the precious “faith of Jesus,” can, in him, place at the disposal of the Holy Spirit such graces of gentleness, such a beauty of holiness, such winsome kindliness, such tact and address, as shall open the way for anything which he has to bring. But to do this she must begin with the child in his relation to the other children of his own age with whom he stands on an equal footing. To treat with deference and politeness only those who because of age or position are recognized as his superiors, would train the child to sychophancy.

The man who can lead other men, except by some appeal to selfish or brutal passion, is very hard to find. A “man’s way” has passed into proverb, and stands for heedlessness as regards his treatment of his equals. His natural sense of pity will make him kind to the helpless, provided he can afford it; he will be respectful to the respectable because his own respectability requires it; and his general interest will lead him to court those who are in a position to bestow favors; but to be all that a consecrated Christian companion might be to those who are on the same plane with himself, or who are so outlawed by public sentiment that no accuser but conscience would arise against him for any wrong done to them, is the point of failure in the association of men with men and women, and is the result of an almost universal idea that “boys don’t need to be so very polite to each other,” nor “so very particular” as to just how they talk when alone among themselves, and that the silly girl or “fallen” among women is legitimate prey for any man.

It is by “behavior” that men and women are protected from, or exposed to, especial and peculiar temptations, as well as made more or less effective in truth-teaching and soul-winning.

It may seem ridiculous to make the use of a handkerchief the subject of grave consideration, but it is a terrible fact that this little scrap of linen has become more dangerous than dynamite to the thoughtless girl in her teens who, for lack of proper teaching, picks up the little tricks of street flirtation, which have so defiled it that it has become almost indecent to handle it outside the seclusion of one’s own room.

Let a bright-faced girl take her handkerchief in hand on the street of even a small country village, and she will immediately become the center of attraction to every lewd fellow who haunts public places, until he has found out what she intends to do with it; and the code of signals for which it is employed is of such a character that the most innocent may be charged with a lewd invitation by what might seem to be its necessary use.

The same is true concerning the sound made by clearing the throat and nasal passages, and coughing. These are all used as signals of vice; and many a giddy, but innocent girl has found herself in situations of great humiliation and danger, simply because she had not been forearmed with a little knowledge as to proper conduct in these matters.

Good form requires that the handkerchief be carried in the pocket out of sight; never brought out in public excepting in a case of necessity, and then used as unobtrusively as possible. The importance of this matter is sufficient to warrant repetition even to line upon line and precept upon precept.

Those who will be able to do the best service in the closing work of the world’s history, to win the richest trophies for our coming King, will be those who, together with the “commandments of God and the faith of Jesus,” and the fulness of the Holy Spirit, will know and observe in deportment that which the world recognizes as good form.

IV.