YOUTHFUL 


GOOD MANNERS.



NOTICE some reasons why the young should earnestly endeavor to cultivate good manners.

1. Because the rights of others demand it. Courtesy is simply a carrying out of human rights. Men have a right not only to life, liberty and property; but to recognition, respect, the comfort and enjoyment of life. 

We have no more right to deprive them of these by our conduct, than to rob them of their good name or of their property. A boy owes it to his elders to treat them with respect, and to all, to behave toward them with thoughtfulness for their welfare. If he is insolent on the street, or disorderly in a lecture or at school, he is a kind of swindler. A girl owes it to society to act with kindly care for the feelings and enjoyment of others; if she is rude and boisterous in public places, or if in a concert she disturbs others by munching candy, or whispering and giggling, she is a cheat. 

She defrauds others of the pleasure they have a right to.

2. Because the manners of our youth will cling to us through life. The habits of language and the gait in walking to which one accustoms himself in the first twenty years of life, are likely always to go with him; so a coarse, rude spirit, or a selfish disagreeable manner indulged in for the first twenty years, will flavor the whole afterlife.

3. Because our manners will influence others powerfully, for good or for evil. Behave nobly, and you draw others toward a noble life; behave meanly or rudely, and you inevitably demoralize others. One rotten apple will spoil a dozen sound ones, and "evil communications" from one bad example will "corrupt the good manners" of those who would otherwise be noble.

4. Because our manners make us attractive or repulsive to others, and so affect our success in life. Many lads owe their positions to their courtesy; others have lost excellent chances, because they were known to be unprincipled, selfish, and coarse.