A meeting of the executive committee of the National I.S.A.A. is
announced for next Saturday evening at the Knickerbocker Athletic Club.
"TRACK ATHLETICS IN DETAIL."--ILLUSTRATED.--8VO, CLOTH, ORNAMENTAL,
$1.25.
THE GRADUATE.
QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG MEN.
GOOD MANNERS.
The average young man scoffs a little at a chap who is noticeable for
his good manners. Many a healthy boy thinks a certain roughness in
speech or manner is a sign of vigor and manliness in contrast to the
weak and womanly ways of one who is always bowing and scraping to the
people whom he meets. There could not be a greater mistake; because,
while an over-display of politeness is a sign of hypocrisy, natural
courtesy will never permit boy or man to behave in any way except in the
thoughtful, quiet, refined way which belongs to good manners. A rough,
honest chap is better than a slippery, well-mannered, dishonest one, to
be sure. That perhaps is the reason for so much of this deliberately
rough way some of us adopt. But this does not prove that courteous
behavior is wrong or to be avoided. It means that courteous behavior is
sometimes used as a cloak for other motives.
There is no reason, therefore, why the average young man in school or
college or business, in his daily occupation, or when he comes in
contact with women or men, girls or boys, should not make it a point to
be reserved, self-contained, tolerant, and observant of the little rules
which every one knows by heart, and which go to make his company and
companionship valuable to others. It is the same in his contact with men
as with women. A systematic method of observing ordinary rules in such
cases invariably has its effect. For example, you will see many a boy in
some discussion among his friends talking all the time, demanding the
attention of others, insisting on his views, losing his temper over a
game of marbles and declining to play longer, or making himself
conspicuous in a hundred other ways. He may be a very good chap, full of
push and vigor, and so sure of his own views that in his heart he cannot
conceive of any other person really having a different view of the
subject. That is an estimable character for a healthy boy to have.
Confidence in one's own ideas often carries one over many a bad place.
But the fact that the boy has such a character and his disagreeable way
of forcing it upon you are two entirely different things; and the
difference of being confident and disagreeable and confident and
agreeable is the difference between good and bad manners.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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