People who are generally
civil and of fair kindliness do it habitually, not only to their own
children, but to all children. We see it in the cars, in the stages, in
stores, in Sunday schools, everywhere.
On the other hand, let a child ask for any thing without saying "please,"
receive any thing without saying "thank you," sit still in the most
comfortable seat without offering to give it up, or press its own
preference for a particular book, chair, or apple, to the inconveniencing
of an elder, and what an outcry we have: "Such rudeness!" "Such an
ill-mannered child!" "His parents must have neglected him strangely." Not
at all: they have been steadily telling him a great many times every day
not to do these precise things which you dislike. But they themselves have
been all the while doing those very things to him; and there is no proverb
which strikes a truer balance between two things than the old one which
weighs example over against precept.
However, that it is bad policy to be rude to children is the least of the
things to be said against it.
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