GENERAL WASHINGTON'S RULES OF CIVILITY.* THE old Wykbamist motto, "
Manners Makyth Man," seems to have been a maxim that impressed itself upon the mind of George Washington at a very early year of his life. Among his manuscript-books that are still preserved in the State Archives at Washington City, the one that bears the earliest date, that of his fourteenth year, is chiefly occupied by a collection of " Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Com- pany and Conversation," which, together with sundry forms for commercial correspondence, had been copied out by the boy for his future guidance. It is curious that in spite of the great mass of literature that has collected round the name of Washington, these rules have never before found their way into print, nor even been mentioned by the many authors who have written of Washington's life. Perhaps, as Mr. Conway suggests, as all the biographies of the great American were written in a eulogistic rather than a critical spirit, their authors were disinclined to admit matter that might have given cause for scandal to their readers. It would have been hardly seemly in their eyes that the object of their worship, the Father of the great Republic and the champion of liberty and equality, should have written, even in his boyish days, of the respectful demeanour that should be observed in the presence of social superiors, the deference that was due to Lords and "Persons of Quality," or the necessity of avoiding unbecoming speech and action before inferiors. However that may be, even after the book had been rescued from the mice of Mount Vernon—who had eaten a good many of the rules—and had been placed among the State Archives, it was still left unnoticed by the historian. But " the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley," —and neither mouse nor man has succeeded in suppressing this interesting record of 'Washington's boyhood, which Mr. Conway has now given us in a restored condition. The restoration of the missing portions has been effected by reference to the original documents from which the rules were compiled, and the discovery of their source shows no little ingenuity on the part of Mr. Conway. It had generally been supposed by those who had examined this manuscript, that Washington must have invented the rules himself, putting into his own words the results of miscellaneous reading ; but with this opinion Mr. Conway could not agree, and for a very curious reason. In the whole list of rules there was no mention of womankind, or of the conduct that a man should observe towards the other sex, and as Washington in his schooldays showed a certain precocity in his dealings with women, Mr. Conway argued that he would hardly have composed a manual of behaviour that was wanting in so essential a respect. Having set himself to discover a source that would explain the omission, lie found it in a treatise entitled Bienseance de la Conversation entre les Hommes, composed by one Jesuit College in 1595 for the use of another. His researches brought to light several other treatises that had been compiled from the same source, notably one which is said to have been translated into English by a Master Francis Hawkins, in his eighth year, and which bears the date of 1646. It is impossible, however, to trace any connection between the English infant prodigy and the Virginian.
When the date and source of the original rules are con- sidered, it will be seen that even in their revised state they
* George Washington's Rules of Civility, Traced to their Source and Restored, By monsure Daniel Conway. London ; Chatto and Winans.
can hardly be taken to give a faithful picture of the manners, or the want of manners, that prevailed in Washington's day. The revision that would be made by a boy of fourteen would in all probability have been of rather a capricious nature, and would have included a good deal of matter which was out of date in 1745, a century and a half later than the original rules from which he was copying. There might have been a con- siderable want of refinement even in the best society of that day in Virginia, but there could hardly have been such a want of cleanliness as would necessitate Rule 13, that begins : " Kill no vermin, as Fleas, lice, etc., in the Sight of others." And so with many others of the rules, the curious side-light that they throw is, not upon the American manners of the eighteenth century, but upon the monastic manners in France at the end of the sixteenth. Remembering this, it would be unfair to lay any stress upon the incongruity between the American idea of Washington and such rules as the following :—
" 37th. In speaking to men of Quality do not lean, nor look them full in the Face, nor approach too near them, at lest Keep a full Pace from them.
"29th. When you moot with one of Greater Quality than your- self, Stop, and retire especially if it be at a Door or any Straight place to give way for him to Pass.
"85th. In Company of these of Higher Quality than yourself Speak not till you are ask'd a Question then Stand upright put of your Hat and Answer in a few words."
In another rule he notes that " if a Person of Quality comes in while your Conversing its handsome to Repeat what was said before." Very handsome, no doubt ; but still, this anxiety to show deference to those whom he sometimes styles " Superiers," is hardly in accordance with the American con- ception of the whole duty of man, and will not look well in the eyes of his admirers. The most useful and the most pleasant rules, however, are those that relate to the dinner-
t92nd. Take no salt or cut Bread with your Knife Greasy.
" 94th. If you. Soak bread in the Sauce lot it be no more than what you put in your Mouth at a time and blow not your broth at Table but Stay till Cools of it Self.
" 07th. Put not another bit into your Mouth till the former be Swallowed let not your morsels be too big for the jowls.
" 99th. Drink not too leisurely nor yet too hastily. Before and after Drinking wipe your Lips breath not then or Ever with too Great a Noise, for its uncivil."
Assuredly it is most uncivil ; and as it would be hardly civil on our part to quote some other rules, which are perhaps a little too plain and outspoken for modern taste, we will be content with those that we have already given. The spelling is often eccentric, and stops are conspicuous by their absence, neither of which faults are surprising in a boy of fourteen of the last century. But the chief interest in the rules, beyond their quaintness of expression, lies in. the fact that they were written out and apparently laid to heart by the schoolboy who was afterwards known as George Washington and the Father of his country, and may presumably be taken as one of the influences that moulded his character. One cannot help speculating as to how far Washington strove to follow those rules, and whether a certain courtesy and consideration for others which he undoubtedly displayed, were solely the result of that early training and a conscious effort to frame his conduct in accordance with it, or simply, as in the case of most people, the outcome of a natural instinct towards politeness. One thing at least we may assume—from the fact that he considered such rules of sufficient importance to be copied into his every-day hook— that he did not esteem a careful attention to the minor moralities to be below the dignity of man. We might wish that his countrymen, who worship his memory, bad been at more pains to copy their idol in this respect.
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