Locke: Breeding (fin.)

Some Thoughts Concerning Education - by John Locke, 1693

[ Breeding, fin. ]

§ 144 There is another fault in good manners, and that is, excess of ceremony, and an obstinate persisting to force upon another what is not his due, and what he cannot take without folly or shame. This seems rather a design to expose than oblige, or at least looks like a contest for mastery; and at best is but troublesome, and so can be no part of good breeding, which has no other use nor end but to make people easy and satisfied in their conversation with us. This is a fault few young people are apt to fall into; but yet, if they are ever guilty of it, or are suspected to incline that way, they should be told of it, and warned of this mistaken civility. The thing they should endeavour and aim at in conversation, should be to show respect, esteem, and good-will, by paying to every one that common ceremony and regard which is in civility due to them. To do this, without a suspicion of flattery, dissimulation, or meanness, is a great skill which good sense, reason and good company can only teach; but is of so much use in civil life, that it is well worth the studying.

§ 145 Though the managing ourselves well in this part of our behaviour has the name of good breeding, as if peculiarly the effect of education; yet, as I have said, young children should not be much perplexed about it; I mean, about putting off their hats and making legs modishly. Teach them humility and to be good-natured if you can, and this sort of manners will not be wanting: civility being, in truth, nothing but a care not to show any slighting or contempt of any one in conversation. What are the most allowed and esteemed ways of expressing this, we have above observed. It is as peculiar and different, in several countries of the world, as their languages: and therefore, if it be rightly considered, rules and discourses, made to children about it, are as useless and impertinent as it would be now and then to give a rule or two of the Spanish tongue to one that converses only with Englishmen. Be as busy as you please with discourses of civility to your son; such as is his company, such will be his manners. A ploughman of your neighbourhood, that has never been out of his parish, read what lectures you please to him, will be as soon in his language, as his carriage, a courtier; that is, in neither will be more polite than those he uses to converse with: and therefore of this no other care can be taken. And, in good earnest, if I were to speak my mind freely, so children do nothing out of obstinacy, pride, and ill-nature, it is no great matter how they put off their hats or make legs. If you can teach them to love and respect other people, they will, as their age requires it, find ways to express it acceptably to every one, according to the fashions they have been used to: and, as to their motions, and carriage of their bodies, a dancing-master, as has been said, when it is fit, will teach them what is most becoming. In the meantime, when they are young, people expect not that children should be over-mindful of these ceremonies; carelessness allowed to that age, and becomes them as well as compliments do grown people: or, at least, if some very nice people will think it a fault, I am sure it is a fault that should be over-looked, and left to time and conversation only to cure: and therefore I think it not worth your while to have your son (as I often see children are) molested or chid about it. But where there is pride or ill-nature appearing in his carriage, there he must be persuaded or shamed out of it.

Though children, when little, should not be much perplexed with rules and ceremonious parts of breeding, yet there is a sort of unmannerliness very apt to grow up with young people, if not early restrained; and that is a forwardness to interrupt others that are speaking, and to stop them with some contradiction. Whether the custom of disputing, and the reputation of parts and learning usually given to it, as if it were the only standard and evidence of knowledge, make young men so forward to watch occasions to correct others in their discourfe, and not to slip any opportunity of showing their talents: so it is, that I have found scholars most blamed in this point. There cannot be a greater rudeness, than to interrupt another in the current of his discourse; for if there be not impertinent folly in answering a man before we know what he will say, yet it is a plain declaration, that we are weary to hear him talk any longer, and have a dis-esteem of what he says; which we judging not fit to entertain the company; desire them to give audience to us, who have something to produce worth their attention. This shows a very great disrespect, and cannot but be offensive: and yet, this is what almost all interruption constantly carries with it. To which, if there be added, as is usual, a correcting of any mistake, or a contradiction of what has been said, it is a mark of yet greater pride and self-conceitedness, when we thus intrude ourselves for teachers, and take upon us, either to set another right in his story, or show the mistakes of his judgment.

I do not say this, that I think there should be no difference of opinions in conversation, nor opposition in men's discourses: this would be to take away the greatest advantage of society, and the improvements are to be made by ingenious company; where the light is to be got from the opposite arguings of men of parts, showing the different sides of things, and their various afpects, and probabilities, would be quite lost if every one were obliged to assent to, and say after the first speaker. 'Tis not the owning one's dissent from another, that I speak against, but the manner of doing it. Young men should be taught not to be forward to interpose their opinions; unless asked, or when others have done, and are silent; and then only by way of enquiry, not instruction. The positive asserting, and the magisterial air should be avoided; and when a general pause of the whole company affords an opportunity, they may modestly put in their question as learners.

This becoming decency will not cloud their parts, nor weaken the strength of their reason; but bespeak the more favourable attention, and give what they say the greater advantage: an ill argument, or ordinary observation, thus introduced, with some civil preface of deference and respect to the opinions of others, wiil procure them more credit and esteem, than the sharpest wit, or profoundest science, with a rough, insolent, or noisy management, which always shocks the hearers, leaves an ill opinion of the man, though he get the better of it in the argurnent.

This therefore should be carefully watched in young people, stopped in the beginning, and the contrary habit introduced in all their conversation. And the rather, because forwardness to talk, frequent interruptions in arguing, and loud wrangling, are too often observable amongst grown people, even of rank, amongst us. The indians whom we call barbarous, observe much more decency and civility in their discourses and conversation; giving one ano ther a fair silent hearing, till they have quite done; and then answering them calmly, and without noise or passion. And if it be not so in this civilized part of the world, we must impute it to a neglect in education, which has not yet reformed this ancient piece of barbarity amongst us. Was it not, think you, an entertaining spectacle, to see two ladies of quality accidentally seated on the opposite sides of a room, set round with company, fall into a dispute, and grow so eager in it, that in the heat of their controversy, edging by degrees their chairs forwards, they were in a little time got up close to one another in the middle of the room; where they for a good while managed the dispute as fiercely as two game-cocks in the pit, without minding or taking any notice of the circle, which could not all the while forbear smiling? This I was told by a person of quality, who was present at the combat, and did not omit to reflect upon the indecencies that warmth in dispute often runs people into; which, since custom makes too frequent, education should take the more care of.