As we have entered Mr. Barclay's dining-room,
we are tempted to linger there, and permit our
readers to observe the details of the dinner.
The right ministration of the table is an important
item in home education. Mr. Barclay had a
just horror of hurrying through meals. He

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

regarded them as something more than means of
sustaining physical wants, — as opportunities of
improvement and social happiness. Are they not
so? and is there any danger of affixing an undue
importance to that, which may teach, at the rate of
three lessons a day, punctuality, order, neatness,
temperance, self-denial, kindness, generosity, and
hospitality? The conventional manners of highbred
people are meant to express these virtues;
but alas! with them the sign often exists without
the thing signified. In middling life, the form
cannot exist without the spirit. The working
men and working women of our country need
not remain for twelve hours chained to the oar
like galley-slaves; and if they will give up a little
money for what the wealth of “Rothschilds and the
Barings” cannot purchase, time, and devote that
time to such a ministration of their meals, as shall
secure “Earth's best angel, health,” as a guest at
the family board, — as shall develope the mind
by conversation, and cultivate refined manners,—
they will find the amount of good resulting to
the home circle incalculable.

Alice and Mary Barclay took their “weeks
about,” as they called it, to arrange and wait on
the table. The table was set with scrupulous
neatness. “Mother sees every thing,” was their
maxim; and sure she was to see it, if the salt was
not freshly stamped, the castors in order, and
every napkin, glass, spoon, knife, and dish put
on, as the girls said, by plummet and line.
These are trifles in detail, but their effect on the
comfort and habits of a large family of children

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

can scarcely be magnified. Few tables in the
land were more frugal than the Barclays', and few
better served. They did not, however, sacrifice
the greater to the less, and there were occasions
when their customary forms gave place to higher
matters.

“Here is our dinner,” said Mr. Barclay, turning
his eye that had been riveted on the happy,
noisy children, to the table where Martha (still
the only domestic) was placing the last dish.

“The dinner here, and I have not changed
my cap!” said Mrs. Barclay.

“And I have not brushed my hair!” — “Nor
I,” — “Nor I,” exclaimed, in a breath, half a
dozen treble voices.

“It 's all my fault, — forgetting to ring the
warning bell,” said Martha, turning her eye from
Wallace to his mother, in explanation of her
lapse of memory.

“Never mind, Martha. Better to forget rules
for once, than forget your part in the family joy.”

“That 's good, mother! let us break all rules
to-day, — let Wally sit by me.”

“O no! mother; by me! by me!” exclaimed
other voices.

“No. Take your usual place, Wallace, by
Haddy.”

“O, where is dear little Haddy?” asked Wallace,
and was answered by her bouncing into the
room. She had been left up stairs to finish a
task. She took her seat beside Wallace. There
was some whispering between them, and it was
plain by her glad eye and her putting her chubby

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

arm around her brother and hugging him close
to her, that pussy and the kite were drowned in
Lethe.

“I guess, Miss Haddy,” said Aunt Betsey,
“you got some help about your task.”

“Aunt Betsey!” replied the little girl, with a
quivering lip, “indeed I did not, — that would be
doing a lie.” How forcibly the “oracles of nature”
come from the unperverted mind of a child!
She who made this reply was but four years old.

The blessing was asked, a usage observed at
Mr. Barclay's table. Whatever objection may be
urged against it from its abuse, he considered the
example of the Saviour a definitive precedent for
him. His distinct and touching manner of acknowledging
the bounties of Providence fixed the
attention. It was feeling, not form.

“You have forgotten the napkins to-day,
Alice,” said her mother.

Alice smiled, and replied in a low voice, “It
was Wallace's fault; just as I was going for
them I heard him call father, and I forgot them.”

It was Alice's turn to serve the table, — a task
always assigned to one, in order to avoid the confusion
of the alternate jumping up and down of
half a dozen little bodies, the dropping of knives
and forks, the oversetting of glasses, and the din
and clatter of a disorderly table.

“There is a nice crust for you, Wallace,” said
Alice, as she passed round the bread; “you love
crust.”

“Aunt Betsey,” called out little Haddy, who
unluckily observed her aunt trespassing against

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

one of the ordinances of the table, “it is not
proper not to use the butter-knife!”

“Hush, Haddy,” breathed her brother, but
not in time. The antagonist principle was strong
in Aunt Betsey's mind. She cherished with equal
fervor dislikes and partialities; and poor little
Haddy was no favorite.

“I wonder which is worst,” she replied, “to
use my own knife as I was brought up to, or for
a little saucebox like you to set me right.”

Willie, Aunt Betsey's pet, dropped his spoon,
put up his lips, and kissed the angry spot away.

“I guess, Alice,” said Mary, “you mean to
brush Wally's place clean enough.” Alice
smiled. She had unconsciously bestowed double
pains in brushing away her brother's crumbs.
How naturally affection makes the most ordinary
services its medium.

“O, Mary!” said Mrs. Barclay, “I forgot
when I gave you the pudding, that you complained
of a headache this morning.”

“It is gone now, mother.”

“It may come back, my dear.”

Mary put down her spoon, and gently pushed
away her plate, saying, without the slightest shade
of dissatisfaction, “It looks very good.”

Alice placed a dish of strawberries on the
table, — the first of the season, — saying as she
did so, “Rather a scant pattern, mother.”

“Yes, barely a taste for each.”

“Give mine to Wally, then,” said Mary.

“And mine too, — and mine too,” echoed and
reëchoed from both sides the table.

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

“And mine too!” repeated little Willie, the
urchin next his mother, who had been contentedly
eating his potato without asking for, or even
looking at, the more inviting food on the table.

The children laughed at his parrotry, and Alice,
kissing his head as she passed, said, “Thank
you for nothing, Willie.”

“Why for nothing? why not thank him as
well as the rest?” asked Aunt Betsey.

“Because I suppose mother won't give him
any strawberries.”

“Why, Anne, you are not going to be so ridiculous
as not to give him strawberries! You may
as well starve him to death at once and done with
it. There is nothing in the world so wholesome
as strawberries.”

“No fruit is wholesome for him, just now,”
said Mrs. Barclay; and she continued to dispense
the strawberries, without manifesting the slightest
irritation at her sister's interference. She had
often explained to her the reason of the very strict
regimen of her younger children; but Aunt Betsey
was one of those who forget the reason, and feel
the fact.

As the Barclays had no nursery maid, they
were obliged to bring their children to the table,
when, with ordinary habits, they would have been
nuisances. To prevent this, as well as early to
implant self-denial, they were not tantalized with
“a very little of this,” and “just a taste of that.”
They saw delicacies come on and go off without
snatching, reaching, asking for them, or even
craving them. Many a time has a guest, on

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

seeing the youngling of the flock eating his potatoes
or dry bread, remonstrated like Aunt Betsey on
the superfluous hardship. But the Barclays knew
it was not so. The monster appetite was thus
early tamed. Its pleasures were felt to be inferior
pleasures, — to be enjoyed socially and gratefully,
but forbearingly. The children were spared
the visitations that proceed from overloaded stomachs.
They rarely had occasion for a physician.
“How lucky Mrs. Barclay is with her children,”
would her wondering neighbours exclaim; “they
never have any sudden attacks, never any fevers,
and when half the children in the city are dying
with measles and hooping cough, these horrible
diseases pass lightly over them; what can it
be?”

This is no fiction, but truth (though feebly
set down) from life.

We left Mrs. Barclay distributing the strawberries.
The front door opened; “There comes
Harry Norton, just in time for some strawberries,”
exclaimed Alice. “O dear! no, it's Mr.
Anthon; it wont be quite so pleasant to give
them up to him.”

Charles rose to vacate his seat, saying, “Give
him my share, mother.”

“O no, mine,” said Alice.

“He shall have both. Thank you, my children;
one would be hardly enough to offer him.”

Charles and Alice retired to a window, while
Mr. Anthon seated himself in the vacated chair,
and fell to devouring the berries. “Bless my
heart,” he exclaimed after he had finished them,

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

“I believe you have given me your place, children,
and your strawberries too; and you look
just as contented as if you had eaten them yourselves.
Its lucky it was not my young ones, —
the house would not have held them. There's
a great difference in children; yours, Barclay,
seem gentlemen and ladies, ready made to your
hand.” Mr. Barclay well knew they were not
“ready made,” but he abstained from disturbing
the self-complacent belief that all differences were
made by nature. “Speaking of gentlemen and
ladies,” resumed Mr. Anthon, “I called to consult
you about the propriety of people of our condition
sending their children to a dancing-school.
Wife is for their going, but women folks, — your
pardon, ma'am,” (to Mrs. Barclay,) “are always
for outside show; so I told her I would not say
yes nor no, till I had heard the pros and cons
from you. The first thing to be settled is,
whether dancing is desirable.”

“Do you mean whether we desire it, Mr. Anthon?
I guess we do!”

“I dare say, miss, but that is nothing to the
purpose.”

“I beg your pardon, my friend, that is very
much to the purpose. If the children relish
dancing, it is an argument in its favor. Youth
must have amusement. Active amusements are
best. If we lived in the country, where our children
could have free exercise in the open air,
dancing would be unimportant; but while they
are condemned to the unnatural life of a city, we
should supply them with every artificial means of

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

developing and improving their persons. I hope
never to see my girls dance to display fine dancing, —
this would mortify me; nor would I have
them waste their time and health in dancing in
crowded rooms, at unseasonable hours; but when
you and I, Anthon, and a half a dozen friends are
talking over news and politics, and what not, it is
enlivening to our children to dance away for an
hour or two after the piano or the flute, or whatever
instrument they may happen to have.”

“Good lack! do you mean your children shall
learn music, too?”

“If they fancy it. Alice already plays tolerably,
and Charles plays a very good accompaniment
on the flute. I wish them to learn whatever
will increase the attractions of their home, and
tend to raise them above coarse pleasures.”

“O, this is all very well for rich people.”

“But far more important for us, Anthon.
Dancing, certainly; as I think, there is nothing
that conduces more to ease and grace, than learning
to dance, — learning to make legs, as Locke
says.”

“What a funny expression!” exclaimed Mary,
who, as well as the rest, was an attentive listener
to the conversation.

“Yes, my dear, odd enough; but Mr. Locke
probably meant learning to use them gracefully.
The legs and arms of boys who are never taught
to dance, are apt to be in their own and every
one's else way. I do not wish my boys to suffer
as I have from blundering into a room, and feeling
when I had to bow to half a dozen gentlemen

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

and ladies, as if I had to run a muck. I said
I consider dancing far more important to our
children than to what are called fashionable people,
and for the reason that they have other opportunities
of cultivating graceful and easy manners.”

“They have more occasion for them.”

“I am not sure of that. We do not yet realize
that we live in a new state of things, and
that the equality, which is the basis of our institutions,
should also, as far as possible, be the basis
of education. There is no sort of inferiority
about which young people suffer more than that
of manners. There are other things certainly
far more important, but this is for ever before their
eyes, pressing on their observation, — is seen and
felt at every turn. The morals of manners we
try to teach our children at home; arbitrary rules
and external graces they must take the usual
means of acquiring.”

“Well, you certainly are odd, Barclay.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I suppose I may speak out, for neither you
nor your wife are touchy.”

“Yes, pray speak out, my friend; my wife and
I both approve the speaking-out principle.”

Mr. Anthon fidgeted on his chair. He felt
a good-natured reluctance to criticizing his friend,
and perhaps a secret consciousness that it was
bold in him to do so. After a little hesitation
he sheltered himself under that broad, common,
and cowardly shield, “they say,” and proceeded;
“They say, Barclay, that you are very

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

inconsistent; that your family is the plainest
dressed family, for people of your property, that
enter the church doors; that your furniture, —
now I don't mean to be impertinent; I know that
every thing is as neat and as comfortable here as
can be; — but they say you might afford to have
things a little smarter, — more like other folks,
who don't think of sending their children to expensive
schools, and to this, and that, and the
other; three of them, I heard a person say, attended
Griscom's course of lectures on natural
philosophy, with you and your wife. That of itself
runs up to a sum that would buy some pretty
articles.”

“It does so, Anthon, and therefore I cannot
buy `pretty articles.' I am a prosperous man in
my business, but my income is limited, and I
must select those objects of expenditure that appear
to me wisest. Now I had rather Alice
should learn to draw, than that she should wear
the prettiest ear-rings in New York, or any hardware
of that description. I would rather my boys
should learn from Professor Griscom something
of the nature and riches of the world they live
in, than to have a mirror the whole length of my
mantel-piece. No, Anthon, I can spare money elsewhere,
but, till I am compelled, I 'll not spare it
in the education of my children.”

“Well, I never thought you was such an ambitious
man.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Why, that you are calculating to make all
your children gentlemen and ladies.”

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

“May I ask you what you mean by my making
them gentlemen and ladies?”

“It is plain enough what I mean, — lawyers,
doctors, and ministers, and wives for such gentle-folks.”

“I shall be governed by circumstances; I do
not intend nor wish, Anthon, to crowd my boys
into the learned professions. If any among them
have a particular talent or taste for them, they
may follow them. They must decide for themselves
in a matter more important to them than to
any one else. But my boys know that I should
be mortified if they selected these professions,
from the vulgar notion that they were more genteel, —
a vulgar word that, that ought to be banished
from an American's vocabulary, — more
genteel than agriculture and the mechanic arts.
I have labored to convince my boys, that there is
nothing vulgar in the mechanic professions, — no
particular reason for envying the lawyer or the
doctor. They, as much as the farmer and the
mechanic, are working men. And I should like
to know what there is particularly elevating in
sitting over a table and writing prescribed forms,
or in inquiring into the particulars of diseases,
and doling out physic for them. It is certainly a
false notion in a democratic republic, that a lawyer
has any higher claim to respectability, — gentility,
if you please, — than a tanner, a goldsmith,
a printer, or a builder. It is the fault of the mechanic,
if he takes a place not assigned to him by
the government and institutions of his country.
He is of the lower orders, only when he is

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

selfdegraded by the ignorance and coarse manners,
which are associated with manual labor in countries
where society is divided into castes, and have
therefore come to be considered inseparable from
it. Rely upon it, it is not so. The old barriers are
down. The time has come when `being mechanical'
we may appear on `laboring days' as
well as holidays, without the `sign of our profession.
' Talent and worth are the only eternal
grounds of distinction. To these the Almighty
has affixed his everlasting patent of nobility, and
these it is which make the bright, `the immortal
names,' to which our children may aspire,
as well as others. It will be our own fault, Anthon,
if, in our land, society as well as government
is not organized upon a new foundation. But we
must secure, by our own efforts, the elevations that
are now accessible to all. There is nothing that
tends more to the separation into classes than difference
of manners. This is a badge that all can see.
I cannot blame a gentleman for not asking a clown
to his table, who will spit over his carpet, and
mortify himself and annoy every body else with
his awkwardness.”

Mr. Anthon's head was rather oppressed by the
matter for reflection that Barclay had put into it.
After a thoughtful pause he said, “Well, seeing
is believing.”

“Yes, and I fear it will be some time yet before
this new form of society which I anticipate,
will be seen; before men will seek to consort
with men because they are intelligent, accomplished,
and examplary, and not because they live

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

in fine houses, associate with genteel people, get
masses of fashionable persons together to pass
evenings in inanity, and exhaust their resources
in extravagant and poisonous eating and drinking.
Let me tell you, Anthon, there is too much
struggling after all this; too much envy; too
much imitation of it among those who are called,
and still call themselves, the middling classes, —
my poor old friend Norton, for instance. But I
see tokens of better times.”

“Of your millennium, I suppose; when farmers
and mechanics are to range with the highest
in the land?”

“Yes, and I can point you to some heralds of
this millennium. There is in this city —,
whom we both know, strictly a working man.
Did he not make a speech at a political meeting
the other night, that would have done honor to
any professional man in the state, not only full of
good common sense, but expressed in choice language,
and with enough of historical allusion to
show that he was a well-read man? His manner
too was easy and unembarrassed; such as becomes
a man addressing his equals. I know a
young man in Greenbrook, my native place, also
a working man, a laborious and successful farmer,
whose general attainments and manners qualify
him for polished society; who has some acquaintance
with science, draws beautifully, and
writes graceful verses.”

“Do you mean that such a man as that in fact
works?”

“Yes, digs, plants, sows, and reaps; and is

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

contented to do so. His home is one of the most
attractive and happy I have ever seen.”

Mr. Anthon shook his head. “There may be
two such men in the nation, but eagles do not fly
in flocks. Your doctrine is quite captivating to
you and me, who do not stand on the top rung of
the ladder, but it's quite contrary to the nature of
things. `One star differeth from another star in
glory,' and there are angels and archangels in
heaven.”

“Yes, undoubtedly there must be angels and
archangels. But what is it that constitutes their
distinction? Knowledge and goodness; — these
make degrees in heaven, and they must be the
graduating scale of a true democracy. I believe
that the Christian law (of course seconding the
law of nature) ordains equality, — democracy if
you please, — and therefore that its progress and
final stability are certain. The ladder is knocked
down, my friend, and we stand on nature's level.”

“That's what I call a pretty up and down
level. You can't even off every body. Now just
look at the difference between your children and
mine. Here are yours listening to our talk, and
taking pleasure in it. Bless your heart, man,
mine would have been out at the doors and windows
before this time.”

It would have been a delicate matter for Mr.
Barclay to have admitted this difference, even if
he had imputed it to the true cause, his habit of
always associating with his children, and of making
conversation, which he considered one of the
most effective means of education, attractive and

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

instructive to them. “We cannot,” he said,
“judge of the merits of a subject which we make
personal. I am sorry we have come to this point,
for I should like, right well, to make a convert of
you. I shall comfort myself, as other people do,
with the faith that my doctrine will prevail. It
certainly will, if we make the equality, instead of
merely claiming it.”

“Ah, there's the rub; how the deuce are we
to make it?”

“By the careful use of all the means we possess
to train these young creatures; by giving
them sound minds in sound bodies; by making
them feel the dignity of well-informed minds, pure
hearts, and refined manners. And for this we
need not college education and foreign masters.
Home is the best school, — the parent the best
teacher. It is the opinion of some wise people,
that the habits are fixed at twelve.”

“The Lord have mercy on my children, then,”
interrupted Mr. Anthon.

“It is not my opinion,” resumed Mr. Barclay;
“but I do think that what is done after that is hard
work, both for parents and children. However,
as our children are, for the most part, at home till
the age of twelve, we see how much we have in
our power, and how wisely Providence has confided
the most important period of life to the care
of the parent, by far the most interested teacher.”

“Well, well,” said Mr. Anthon, who had too
much reason for feeling uncomfortably under
these remarks, “it can't be expected of a business
man to do much with what you call home

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

education. The wife must see to that. My wife
is a good soul, but she has not got Mrs. Barclay's
knack. Come, is it not time for you to go to
your office?”

“Yes, past my usual time, by a half hour. I
always allow myself an hour with my family at
dinner.”

“An hour! bless my heart! We get through
at our house in about ten minutes, — never exceed
fifteen. My father made it a rule to choose
the quickest eaters for his workmen. If they did
not bolt in ten minutes, he concluded they were
lazy or shiftless.”

“Your father's bolting system would not suit
me. I cannot judge for others, but I know that
I am more diligent and active in business for
having such an object ahead as a happy hour at
home, — (an hour I must say, in praise of my
good wife, never abridged by a want of punctuality
on her part;) and I return to my office with
more strength and spirits, for the little rest I give
myself after I have swallowed my food. This is
my experience, and it should be so according to
the best medical theories.”

“O dear!” said Mr. Anthon, with something
between a sigh and a groan, “I wish I had
thought of all these matters when I was a
younger man; but it's too late now.”

We would humbly recommend it to those for
whom it is not too late, to think of “these matters.”

p343-056

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