Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Be Like GWash

From GEORGE WASHINGTON'S RULES OF CIVILITY, complied 1890



2 comments:

Magpie Mason said...

More and more in recent years, I see the Rules of Civility attributed to George Washington, but he is not the author. He was introduced to these etiquette rules in a book when he was a boy, and to learn and internalize the teachings, he transcribed them into his journal for study and reflection.

Cordially,
Jay

Tom Van Dyke said...

Thx. It's all explained at the link.

On the whole, though it is very uncertain, the balance of probabilities seems to favour the theory that the Rules of Civility, found in a copy-book among school exercises, exceedingly abbreviated, and marked by clerical errors unusual with Washington, were derived from the oral teachings of his preceptor; that this Frenchman utilised (and was once or twice misled by) the English version along with the original, which had been used as a manual in his Rouen College.