Miss Hendrickson taught in the town of Ridgeway, where the leading industries were carried on in factories of various kinds. Nearly all the parents worked in some one of these. Naturally, with their long hours of work, these parents had little time for such secondary matters as polishing their children’s manners. Most of them were thankful if they could feed the hungry youngsters and provide a place where they could sleep. Miss Hendrickson soon became aware that the matter of teaching good manners devolved upon her exclusively. She also felt that a direct attack upon the rude customs of her pupils would be less effective than indirect procedure, since refined manners in this particular community usually resulted in having the scornful epithet, “Stuck-up!” attached to the possessor of said manners. [Sidenote: Interest in Manners] After careful deliberation, Miss Hendrickson decided to take advantage of the story period in laying the foundation for more explicit teaching of manners later. Accordingly, she began the story of the feudal system and the institution of chivalry that sprang from it, a story always appealing to seventh and eighth grade pupils. She told how the feudal lord had to build strong castles for the safety of his family in those days of warfare. She vividly portrayed life in the castle, and showed how women also often had to do brave, daring acts in defending the castle when the husband was away. She explained how little boy pages were trained to wait on the ladies of the castle and to be polite to them, and how, when these same boys were older and became knights their highest duty was to protect these women who had few neighbors and who were shut up much of the time in the castles because it was unsafe to go abroad, and how the women returned this care by making the homecoming a very happy time for the lords and husbands whenever they came back from war. As the story progressed from day to day, Miss Hendrickson developed the thought that this sort of life in the castle gradually changed in many ways the ideals and habits of the people. Poetry and music, for other than religious purposes, began to be written and sung, and the rude people who had formerly laughed at refinement in manners as something effeminate and unsuited to a warrior, began to realize after a while that a man could be brave and strong, yet at the same time be gentle and polite toward women and toward all who were weaker or more dependent than himself. So, in time, the lords began to vie with each other to see who could be most polite or who could render the greatest service to his lady.