A WORD MORE

HE last word on manners was not with our gentle

Emerson, difficult as it might be to find anything more exhaustive and refined than his treatment of that subject. Speaking from the social standpoint, his exquisite and discerning canvas of the much canvassed theme leaves nothing to be added. It was when he covered the whole life-field with the assertion that there is always time for courtesy that he struck ground where some things remain to be said. Preeminently, too, America is the place to say them. The author who carries the proposition into the business world makes a fair start in that direction when he declares that the Americans spoil more business through lack of good manners than in any other way.

Yet to leave the matter there is much like expecting to save sinners by convicting them of sin. It is not difficult to convince a nation of hustlers in every line of business that they are deficient in manners, and no doubt the worse for it, since many of the poor driven creatures have a troublesome sense of such drawbacks in their business careers. But to convert them to a belief that there is always time for courtesy is a work of grace that would require a whole gospel to set forth-perhaps, too, a new code of manners to meet the need.

It seems hard for some people to realize that the manners of the drawing-room can never be made to fit the business world. The street-car conductor who told two ladies exchanging courteous farewells while he waited past time

for one of them to alight that his car was "no 'ception parlor" may have failed in his manners but he certainly indicated the failure of parlor manners in such a place. The gentlemanly railroad officials who furnish formulas for the ticket agent to use in meeting the inane questions put to them by the traveling public, and all manner of explicit directions with tickets and wrappers for the traveler himself, know something of the difficulties to be encountered in preserving the courtesies of their tremendous business. Apparently, too, they have a fair sense of the ground of those difficulties, for when a lady, recently inquiring for her train, was able to give its name and number, a higher official standing near smilingly declared that she was one in a thousand.

When it comes to dealing with different lines of life and activity the laws of behavior may indeed "yield to the energy of the individual." In professional as well as business life, the more energetic the worker the less time is left for courtesy in the common acceptation of the term. Doctors, authors and editors are often held up as examples of breaches of etiquette in their dealings with lesser creatures. Yet no doubt they all suffer serious drains upon their time and energy by people wholly ignorant of the demands of their calling or the etiquette that properly belongs to it. Even the very forms of speech in the business and professional world carry sometimes a special meaning in their place that outside of it might seem objectionable if not offensive. A very gracious editor of a large newspaper who rather prided himself on maintaining perfect courtesy toward all callers, fell woefully from grace by simply applying the newspaper term "Stuff" to a contribution one lady brought him. A brief glance at the Ms. showed him that it belonged to a class of matter they had ceased to

publish. But when he inadvertently told her that they were not using stuff of that nature, she exclaimed indignantly: "Stuff is it, sir! Well, at least I thought I was coming into the presence of a gentleman,” and the fine garment of manners ceased to adorn that autocrat of the press for her and her set from that hour.

Editors perhaps have taken warning from experiences of that kind, for they now couch their answers to the undesired applicants for their favor in such gracious and beguiling language that it is rather a pleasure to be rejected by them. Indeed, there are some of the busiest editors who will spare time for words of encouragement with a returned Ms. that ought to let them into the kingdom of heaven, as angels of the helping hand now open it.

The greatest are the kindliest in every instance, and this may be a point worth noting in that plea for manners in the business world which the students of the subject are now presenting. It naturally connects itself with that finer view of business which holds the human element above all systems or scientific formulas that were ever devised; for it takes a man of large mind and heart and thorough understanding of mankind to realize the power of simple kindliness, from which all good manners proceed, in dealing with men everywhere. The old Greek sage who said that the charm of a man is his kindness gave man the prime rule for winning his cause in any field where human nature figures, and the growing sense of human brotherhood adds the crowning impulse to Christian courtesy toward every one with whom man in any station or relation has to do.

The general manager of a large business concern knew well the ground of success when he looked for a sales manager who was "big and broad mentally, but most of all a man who was human." The man who is big and human,

though he may not find time for the forms of courtesy prescribed by polite society, will never forget the respect due to the human being in all his manner and demeanor toward him. It is the pompous clerk or subordinate dressed in a little brief authority who assumes such rude and supercilious airs as spoil business in his atmosphere. The great captains of industry, the magnates in the commercial world, whatever else they may be, are men who maintain the courtesies of life and good breeding in business as other relations. It is true, however, that "good manners need the support of manners in others" and the people with whom business men have to deal may not give exactly the support indicated.

"Business tips to Americans" might take into account the good or ill effect which the manners of the general public toward those who serve it naturally have. People of any country who fail in civility to the humblest clerk or employé in any field must help to spoil business more seriously perhaps than they realize, as well as some other things much finer than business.

The changes in economic and industrial lines which send women of established social position into the business world have done much toward bringing the amenities of life to bear upon it, and still there is room for something more. From the Christmas shopper to the mistress of the mansion there is still too little of that kindly consideration for those that serve them which brings the gentle word and manner that true courtesy and good breeding demand, and above all the social ideals of the hour. From the "noblesse oblige” of the old order to the human brotherhood and equality of the new, the transition is not sufficiently complete to have wiped out class distinctions, and curtness rather takes the place of condescension in the dealings of the upper classes with

the lower, which, though less humiliating, is certainly not more conducive to good manners.

When all is told it is the Christian ideal of loving kindness toward all, which "the first true gentleman that ever breathed" brought to the world, that must prevail if men are ever to achieve that genuine courtesy for which there is always time.