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MOOSEHEART MAGAZINE
With Superintendent Adams at Mooseheart
members of the family probably reuse their own .
Never Use a Toothpick at the Table or in Public
This is another thing that sometimes “sickens people”. There are no toothpicks on the tables at MOOSE-HEART. In the best dining rooms you will never see toothpicks. In some restaurants you will find toothpicks in some isolated corner as you are going out. Toothpicks are very harmful to your teeth. If you must use something, use dental floss.
If you brush your teeth properly you do not need to use toothpicks. You should go up and down on your teeth and get your brush back to where your teeth end. A great deal of food collects there.
Reaching for Food
Never reach too far for food. Don’t reach across the table or in front of somebody or around somebody. When you do this you really say to the person next to you. “You wouldn’t pass the bread even if I should ask for it.” Don’t be bashful about asking for things.
“Please Pass the Bread”
«Never say, “Next on the bread” or “After you on the bread”. This is common where people have not had a good family training. Please remember in asking for things to address your conversation to one person as, “John, please pass the bread,” or “George, please pass the butter”. If you do not mention a persons’ name you have the nerve to ask everyone at the table to pay attention to your request.
Care of Nose at the Table
If you want to sneeze or cough at the table and you have to, of course, you cannot help it. Try to get your handkerchief out and cough or sneeze into it. Many times you can sort of “swallow” your sneeze or cough. If you have to clear your nose by the use of a handkerchief, do it before you come to the table. Many times, if done at the table, it turns a person’s stomach so that they are not able to eat any more. Some people ask to be excused and go out in another room to do this. This may be carrying it to extreme. You can usually get along without using a handkerchief at the table.
No Whispering
Of course you should never whisper at the table. Everyone there thinks you are talking about them, if you do, and this makes you unpopular.
Conversation at the Table
Always talk about pleasant things at the table. It makes the food digest better. Never “hold court” at the table or start an argument. Never tell a story or say anything that may turn a persons’ stomach. A person at one table should never hold a conversation with someone at another table.
Learn Good Manners When Young
It is a pity that everyone cannot learn certain things about politeness, courtesy and good breeding when they are young. You ought to keep the Junior boys and girls at these things so that when they get as old as you they will never make mistakes. I do not say this so that people will say how nice they are, but because it makes them so much easier in their own mind. They can go anywhere and not be afraid they are going to make a mistake or feei embarrassed.
Good manners are necessary for success. You cannot do much in this world unless you meet people at the dinner table. In a hotel or in a train, just as at home, you have to know how to eat. These things are worth thousands of dollars to you and do not cost a penny.
Ten Minute Talks With High School Boys and Girls on Their Problems
(Superintendent Adams appoints daily one of the Senior Class to be acting chairman of the Assembly. He has also started to make ten minute talks to the Senior hoys and girls on their every day lire problems,—not the problems they are to those in charge. Here are samples of some of the talks. The stenographic and typewriting work on these was done by a Mooseheart girl who took verbatim what he said.)
Don’t Fill Your Mouth Too Full
Be sure and do not put too much in your mouth. Just put in enough for one swallow and not three or four. A person may be embarrassed by putting so much in his mouth that it takes three or four swallows to clear it, for somebody may ask him a question suddenly and if he had his mouth full he would not be able to answer. Moreover, he might be taken with a sudden coughing spell and throw out all the contents of his mouth.
“If You Please”
If the person at the head af the table asks you if you want some more potatoes or more meat say, “If you please” or “No, thank you”. The same wording is to be used if a waitress should be serving you. One should be just as polite and courteous to a waitress and others serving them, as they would be to their host and hostess who may sit at the end of the table.
Be Thoughtful and Notice the Needs of Others
In many cases you will note that someone sitting next to or near you may ask if you would like to have some more of such and such a thing to eat, or they will say, “Would you like the pepper or salt” or “May I help you to such and such a thing?” This shows that the” person speaking is not selfish and has been thinking about whether or not you have enough to eat or need anything. It also shows that he must have grown up in a good home where the mother was very thoughtful about the children and so he has acquired this thoughtfulness about those sitting near him. This is a splendid habit to get into. We should always do this whether we be at our own table, or visiting, or at a restaurant. I notice the people who are the best trained and who come from the best schools always do this.
Don’t Make Your Own Hash
If things are served to you on a “side dish”, leave them there, unless it be potatoes. It isn’t the right thing to put them all on your plate and make hash of them. At some meals there may be served two or three things on “side dishes”. You can put the potatoes on your plate, but leave the rest of the things as they are.
Always put things into your mouth separately. Never get a little bit of everything on your fork and put it in your mouth. It looks bad. It is all right to eat “hash” if it is brought to you made by the cook, but you should not make it on your plate .
Never Use Your Fingers to Help Fill Fork
This is very common, especially among smaller boys or girls and it is a most unfortunate habit. If you cannot eat something without using your fingers to push it onto your fork, do not eat it.
The Use of the Napkin
The use of the napkin differs.׳ If you are in a restaurant of course you should not fold your napkin but should leave it on the table or on the chair. In your own home you fold your napkin simply as a matter of economy as you use it for more than one meal. If you are eating in a private home you should leave your napkin unfolded so that the person who cleans up the table will know that it was used by a visitor and will take it away, as the
have much home training or education.
It is an action of which he would be very much ashamed, if he knew better. If others did not judge us by our table manners it would be different. It is just as bad not to break up your bread as it is to sop your bread in your coffee, which is a very poor practice.
Cut Your Meat as You Eat
Another thing is in regard to cutting your meat. It is considered a very poor way to cut your meat up into eight or ten small pieces of meat on your plate at once. This is only done for small children who cannot cut their meat or those who are ill and have to have people cut it for them. I once knew a man who acquired this habit as a child in an orphanage. He never got over it.
Use Knife and Fork
Of course you should not play with your knife, fork ,or spoon at the table. If you saw a person with a knife upright in one hand and a fork upright in the other, you say that he did not look very well. Sometime when you are asked to eat in some private home where the table is immaculate and the silverware and glasses are beautiful, you will feel just a little embarrassed as to what to do with your knife and fork when they ask you to have another helping of roast beef or potatoes, and you pass your plate. Most people do what is correct, that is, put their knife and fork on their plate. Never put them in your hands or lean them against a saucer.
When you are through eating you may be at a loss, once again, to know what to do with your knife and fork. These should be laid on your plate, with the edge of the knife inward. This is the way you signal to the person at the head of the table that you are through eating. Try to get through about the same time as all the others.
In general it should he said that whenever you can use your fork for breaking up or by pressing with the side of the prong, or cutting anything, instead of using your knife, this should be done. Only use the knife for cutting purposes when it is impossible to use the fork for dividing food, _ even ham that is cut thin, etc. You will, of course, have to use your knife in cutting steak.
How to Eat Soup
One of the elementary things is not to tip up your soup plate. In cne way it is a compliment to the one who made the soup, but it looks as if you thought the people were too stingy to give you any more. It is a great deal better to ask for another helping than to tip up your bowl and to try to rescue the last spoonful from the bottom of it.
Most all motions are c’ockwise. that is, in the direction the hands of the clock move, but you do not put the soup into your mouth by means of a clockwise motion. You do just the reverse. Your spoon goes down and comes up around in just the opposite direction, away from the body, through the soup on the downward stroke.
A great many people eat from the end of the spoon. They have a hard time getting the soup up to their mouths and then in getting it pointed down their throats . This is dangerous. Suppose something should fall against your arm, down your throat would go your spoon. You should take the soup from the side of the spoon. Of course, soup should be eaten silently, not sucked in.
A Dinner Invitation
If a person invited you out to dinner it used to be the custom to go around and make a “party call” on that person three or four days later.
Now when you are invited out to dinner, a few days later you really ought to write them a letter and tell them how much you enjoyed the dinner, etc. You may be sure you will then get another invitation later on and people will consider you well brought up. No one forgets when they are thanked for such things.
Table Manners
We all come from different families. Some have had training in table manners, not because that family is of better blood than another but because some had had a certain material advantages allowing the members to get an education. At the present time one of the most encouraging things is that people who a generation ago would have been in families of little opportunity and education are now much better situated. Just as the family of the ordinary American now has in their home a piano, a Victrola, or modern plumbing, etc., so this family has; the training, culture and refinement of a _ progressive up-to-date American family.
One of the essential things in attaining success is good table manners. I am continually surprised at people who have, what is considered, a good education, but very bad manners. One way of acquiring good table manners is to watch others and always use good manners, so as to make them a habit. Just because you may be eating alone or in a restaurant, do not give them up. We are apt to say to ourselves, “I know how to eat all right,” but never use our table manners unless company is present and then we expect to eat _ in the proper way. We cannot do this. We cannot have company manners much different from every day manners .
Common Mistakes at the Table
During the last few weeks I have seen a student who put his left arm on the table right in front of his plate and ate over it. There is nothing really vulgar about it, but it does not look right. No one ever thinks of leaving his spoon in his cup. When using a knife, the forefinger should be on the handle near where the blade joins it and not half way down the blade. The fork is one of the hardest things to use. Do not place too much on the fork and never smooth off that which is on the side or end of the fork with the knife, as a bricklayer would smooth mortar off with the trowel. You have to watch these things now or you will never be able to control yourself as far as table manners are concerned.
How to Butter Bread
Breaking up your bread is another thing. If you butter a whole slice or even a half a slice at a time you are not doing the usual thing. You should only butter a piece of such size as you usually put in your mouth, at- one time . If you do not get into the habit of this you will never do it. You may think it is a silly thing. You say it is too slow. This means you want to eat too fast.
I have seen again and again eight or ten responsible business men seated around the table and perhaps one out of the number did not break his bread correctly . This would indicate that perhaps this man did not