For women set the standard of manners in every age,
if a child has not learnt by seven years old how to behave towards them
it is scarcely possible for him to learn it at all, and it is by women
only that it can be taught. The little _damoiseaux_ would have perfect
and accomplished manners for their age when they left the apartments of
the ladies at seven years old; it was a matter of course that they would
fall off a good deal in their next stage. They would become "pert," as
pages were supposed to be, and diffident as esquires, but as knights
they would come back of themselves to the perfect ways of their
childhood with a grace that became well the strength and self-possession
of their knighthood. We have no longer the same formal and ceremonial
training; it is not possible in our own times under the altered
conditions of life, yet it commands attention for those who have at
heart the future well-being of the boys and girls of to-day. The
fundamental facts upon which manners are grounded remain the same. These
are, some of them, worth consideration:--
1. That manners represent a great deal more than mere social
observances; they stand as the outward expression of some of the deepest
springs of conduct, and none of the modern magic of philanthropy--
altruism, culture, the freedom and good-fellowship of democracy,
replaces them, because, in their spirit, manners belong to religion.
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