THAT’S COURTESY!

4. A Store Is Not a Race Track

THIS lovely and careful business of getting children ready for life should include the grace of good manners in stores and places of business. Here the child, a bundle of curiosity and filled with the natural childish desire to handle everything, can become a dreaded nuisance. Here, also, children can violate the "Thou shalt not steal" commandment.

If in a child's own home he is permitted to appropriate for his own use anything he can reach or touch, he is bound to consider everything "fair game" in stores and other public places. Parents who, out of a desire to solve a problem in an easier way, put out of reach or hide things they do not want their children to have, unwittingly give their children the idea that anything they can reach is theirs by way of discovery. I have met many children who had this idea; and they learned it at home.

Parents often say, "Hide this quickly, while he's not looking." It may be harder and it may involve a little difficulty at first, but if a child learns by a word that some things are just not his, he will be a happier child than if he is turned loose on everything. His restless acquisitiveness should have bounds.

One day grandmother saw little Charlie examining a pretty, expensive vase on a small table. "I'll put it up so he won't break it," she said.

"Oh, no," I told her, "please don't. Come here, Charlie," I interrupted myself to say. The baby came to me, happily, confidently.

I took his little hand and led him to the vase. "That is Aunt Gert's pretty vase," I told him. "Baby must not touch it, for it might break."

He looked up into my face. "Charlie not touch?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Charlie must not touch."

He went away and played with something else and did not bother the vase any more. Grandma and auntie marveled at it, but it was not so wonder­ful. We had talked of such things in that way for a long time, and he understood me perfectly. I never had to spank his hands any more, for he knew what I meant when I said he must not touch. And he was not unhappy.

In stores children reveal their home training. As far as possible, parents should accompany their children to stores. Children should be instructed to look—yes, look all they want to—but not to touch unless they are invited to do so by the clerk. It is a part of the training of a child in the graces of life to be well-mannered in stores. Here he may witness to the refining influence of the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I used to tell stories about the different things I wanted to teach my boys when they were small. Little rhymes helped too.

"The things in stores are not yet yours;
Keep hands away until you pay."

I took some children to a yard-goods store one day. They had begged me to take them with me. But as soon as they got in the door they began to chase one another all around, whirling and flying from one aisle to another. I called them to me. "You must not do that," I said. "This is a store, not a race track. You are bumping into people and making a nuisance of yourselves."

"Oh, mamma doesn't care," the oldest one assured me. "She always lets us."

I told them that if they wanted to be with me, they could not do this, for people do not like it. I pointed out that even the manager was standing up to look. I showed them that a clerk nearby was watching. "You must always watch to see whether you are doing something that is not polite," I told them. "Get the habit of watching. That is a part of growing up. You would not want to be told to get out of this store, would you?"

The children considered. "I guess not," the oldest child decided. "I might want to come back."

Last summer I was eating lunch in a large drug­store near a university. A group of teenagers came in. They were around fourteen or fifteen years old. There were both girls and boys, and they filled about three tables. I noted that the girls who waited tables were very nervous, and one called the manager.

He came out, very angry.

"Get out of here, every one of you," he commanded. "And you are lucky if I don't call the police and have you run in!"

They got up and left, but stood out in front and talked awhile. It was a hot day, and they seemed to want a cool drink or some ice cream, but their bad behavior had closed at least one door.

"You should have seen the mess they made of the tables yesterday when they came in," a waitress volunteered to me. "They emptied salt into the sugar, filled the salt shakers with Coca Cola, and broke nine glasses. It took a long time to clean up after them."

Such children have never been taught the first principles of courtesy and politeness.

"The essence of true politeness is consideration for others. The essential, enduring education is that which broadens the sympathies and encourages universal kindliness. That so-called culture which does not make a youth deferential toward his parents, appreciative of their excellences, forbearing toward their defects, and helpful to their necessities; which does not make him considerate and tender, generous and helpful toward the young, the old, and the unfortunate, and courteous toward all is a failure." The Adventist Home p. 423.

Let us, then, as Christians teach our children the refining nature of real religion. "One child, properly disciplined in the principles of truth, who has the love and fear of God woven through the character, will possess a power for good in the world that cannot be estimated." ELLEN WHITE in Signs of the Times July 13, 1888.