Etiquette - Emily Post (english novels for students TXT) 📗

"When He Has Finished Eating, The Child Should Lay His Knife And Fork Close Together, Side By Side, With Handles Toward The Right Side Of His Plate...." [Page 575.]

The Fork And Knife Together

In being taught to use his knife, the child should at first cut only something very easy, such as a slice of chicken; he should not attempt anything with bones or gristle, or anything that is tough. In his left hand is put his fork with the prongs downward, held near the top of the handle. His index finger is placed on the shank so that it points to the prongs, and is supported at the side by his thumb. His other fingers close underneath and hold the handle tight. He must never be allowed to hold his fork emigrant fashion, perpendicularly clutched in the clenched fist, and to saw across the food at its base with his knife.

The Knife

The knife is held in his right hand exactly as the fork is held in his left, firmly and at the end of the handle, with the index finger pointing down the back of the blade. In cutting he should learn not to scrape the back of the fork prongs with the cutting edge of the knife. Having cut off a mouthful, he thrusts the fork through it, with prongs pointed downward and conveys it to his mouth with his left hand. He must learn to cut off and eat one mouthful at a time.

It is unnecessary to add that the knife must never be put in his mouth; nor is it good form to use the knife unnecessarily. Soft foods, like croquettes, hash on toast, all eggs and vegetables, should be cut or merely broken apart with the edge of the fork held like the knife, after which the fork is turned in the hand to first (or shovel) position. The knife must never be used to scoop baked potato out of the skin, or to butter potato. A fork must be used for all manipulations of vegetables; butter for baked potatoes taken on the tip of the fork shovel fashion, laid on the potato, and then pressed down and mixed with the prongs held points curved up.

When no knife is being used, the fork is held in the right hand, whether used "prongs down" to impale the meat or "prongs up" to lift vegetables.

To pile mashed potato and other vegetables on the convex side of the fork on top of the meat for two or more inches of its length, is a disgusting habit dear to school boys, and one that is more easily prevented than corrected. In fact, taking a big mouthful (next to smearing his face and chewing with mouth open) is the worst offense at table.

When he has finished eating, he should lay his knife and fork close together, side by side, with handles toward the right side of his plate, the handles projecting an inch or two beyond the rim of the plate. They must be placed far enough on the plate so that there is no danger of their over-balancing on to the table or floor when removed at the end of the course.

Other Table Matters

The distance from the table at which it is best to sit, is a matter of personal comfort. A child should not be allowed to be so close that his elbows are bent like a grasshopper's, nor so far back that food is apt to be spilled in transit from plate to mouth. Children like to drink very long and rapidly, all in one breath, until they are pink around the eyes, and are literally gasping. They also love to put their whole hands in their finger-bowls and wiggle their fingers.

A baby of two, or at least by the time he is three, should be taught to dip the tips of his fingers in the finger-bowl, without playing, draw the fingers of the right hand across his mouth, and then wipe his lips and fingers on the apron of his bib.

No small child can be expected to use a napkin instead of a bib. No matter how nicely behaved he may be, there is always danger of his spilling something, some time. Soft boiled egg is hideously difficult to eat without ever getting a drop of it down the front, and it is much easier to supply him with a clean bib for the next meal than to change his dress for the next moment.

Very little children usually have "hot water plates" that are specially made like a double plate with hot water space between, on which the meat is cut up and the vegetables "fixed" in the pantry, and brought to the children before other people at the table are served. Not only because it is hard for them to be made to wait, and have their attention attracted by food not for them, but because they take so long to eat. As soon as they are old enough to eat everything on the table, they are served, not last, but in the regular rotation at table in which they come.

Table Tricks That Must Be Corrected

To sit up straight and keep their hands in their laps when not occupied with eating, is very hard for a child, but should be insisted upon in order to prevent a careless attitude that all too readily degenerates into flopping this way and that, and into fingering whatever is in reach. He must not be allowed to warm his hands on his plate, or drum on the table, or screw his napkin into a rope or make marks on the tablecloth. If he shows talent as an artist, give him pencils or modeling wax in his playroom, but do not let him bite his slice of bread into the silhouette of an animal, or model figures in soft bread at the table. And do not allow him to construct a tent out of two forks, or an automobile chassis out of tumblers and knives. Food and table implements are not playthings, nor is the dining-room a playground.

Talking At Table

When older people are present at table and a child wants to say something, he must be taught to stop eating momentarily and look at his mother, who at the first pause in the conversation will say, "What is it, dear?" And the child then has his say. If he wants merely to launch forth on a long subject of his own conversation, his mother says, "Not now, darling, we will talk about that by and by," or "Don't you see that mother is talking to Aunt Mary?"

When children are at table alone with their mother, they should not only be allowed to talk but unconsciously trained in table conversation as well as in table manners. Children are all more or less little monkeys in that they imitate everything they see. If their mother treats them exactly as she does her visitors they in turn play "visitor" to perfection. Nothing hurts the feelings of children more than not being allowed to behave like grown persons when they think they are able. To be helped, to be fed, to have their food cut up, all have a stultifying effect upon their development as soon as they have become expert enough to attempt these services for themselves.

Children should be taught from the time they are little not to talk about what they like and don't like. A child who is not allowed to say anything but "No, thank you," at home, will not mortify his mother in public by screaming, "I hate steak, I won't eat potato, I want ice cream!"

Quietness At Table

Older children should not be allowed to jerk out their chairs, to flop down sideways, to flick their napkins by one corner, to reach out for something, or begin to eat nuts, fruit or other table decorations. A child as well as a grown person should sit down quietly in the center of his chair and draw it up to the table (if there is no one to push it in for him) by holding the seat in either hand while momentarily lifting himself on his feet. He must not "jump" or "rock" his chair into place at the table. In getting up from the table, again he must push his chair back quietly, using his hands on either side of the chair seat, and not by holding on to the table edge and giving himself, chair and all, a sudden shove! There should never be a sound made by the pushing in or out of chairs at table.

The Spoiled Child

The bad manners of American children, which unfortunately are supposed by foreigners to be typical, are nearly always the result of their being given "star" parts by over-fond but equally over-foolish mothers. It is only necessary to bring to mind the most irritating and objectionable child one knows, and the chances are that its mother continually throws the spotlight on it by talking to it, and about it, and by calling attention to its looks or its cunning ways or even, possibly, its naughtiness.

It is humanly natural to make a fuss over little children, particularly if they are pretty, and it takes quite super-human control for a young mother not to "show off" her treasure, but to say instead, "Please do not pay any attention to her." Some children, who are especially free from self-consciousness, stand "stardom" better than others who are more readily spoiled; but in nine cases out of ten, the old-fashioned method that assigned children to inconspicuous places in the background and decreed they might be seen but not heard, produced men and women of far greater charm than the modern method of encouraging public self-expression from infancy upward.

Chief Virtue: Obedience

No young human being, any more than a young dog, has the least claim to attractiveness unless it is trained to manners and obedience. The child that whines, interrupts, fusses, fidgets, and does nothing that it is told to do, has not the least power of attraction for any one, even though it may have the features of an angel and be dressed like a picture. Another that may have no claim to beauty whatever, but that is sweet and nicely behaved, exerts charm over every one.

When possible, a child should be taken away the instant it becomes disobedient. It soon learns that it can not "stay with mother" unless it is well-behaved. This means that it learns self-control