ithout plans for the next summer in
the same place. Then, too, if you are contemplating something new, a
piano, a chair, an automobile, talk it all over here. Let each one have
his share in the planning. The effect is most important for character;
the children acquire the sense of a share in the family community life.
They get their first lessons in citizenship in this group, and they thus
learn social living. Then when the chair, or what not, is bought, it is
not alone the parents' possession; it belongs to all and all treat it as
the property of all.

Sixthly, introduce great guests who cannot come in person. It is fine
fun to say, "We have with us tonight a man who loved bees and wrote
books." Let them guess who it was; help, if necessary, by an allusion
to _The Life of the Bee_ and _The Blue Bird_. They will want to know
more about Maeterlinck and they will joyously imagine what they would
say to him and how he would answer, what he would eat and how he would
behave. In this way we may enjoy knowing better Lincoln, Whittier,
Florence Nightingale, and an innumerable company.

Seventhly, this is the place to remind ourselves that table-manners are
no small part of the moral life. By the habituation of custom we can
establish lives in attitudes of everyday thoughtfulness for others, in
the underlying consideration of others which is the basis of all
courtesy. Children's questions on table-etiquette must be met, not only
by the formal rules, but also by their explanation in the intent of
every gentle life to give pleasure and not pain to others, so to live in
all things as to find helpful harmony with other lives and to help them
to find and be the best. It is not only impolite to grab and guzzle, it
is unsocial and so unmoral, because it is both a bad example and a
distressing sight to others. It is irreligious, because whatever tends
to make this life less beautiful must be offensive to the God who made
all things good.

If we ourselves seek to maintain beauty, order, and kindliness in the
conduct of the table, our children acquire a love of all that makes for
beauty and order and kindliness, for righteousness in the little things
of life. A clean tablecloth may be a means of grace. You have to try to
live up to it. Order and quietness in eating are not separable from the
rest of the life. To lift up life at any point is to raise the whole
level. To let it down at any point is to let all down. But to lift up
the le