I

LACK something. This lack, although now growing less noticeable, often has caused me anguish. Can a similar need perhaps be met by the public schools within a few years?

From back in the grades, one still clear picture remains, an incident that made me rebelliously ill at ease. The principal, by chance in our room, was admonishing a certain Jennie Long to sit up straight. Said our principal, "Jennie, a girl with your splendid figure ought to hold herself well. You should be proud of your carriage, my dear, and-" Just here I snickered, and was ordered, my face burning, into the cloakroom to await punishment. She came, the principal, and reproved me, called me rude and unkind. I was indignant but silent. How could I tell Miss Garth that at home everybody made fun of Jennie's lanky, ungainly figure, even laughed whenever she passed our house, "There goes that gawk!" I had only done at school as my people did at home. And it didn't seem fair to be punished for what was natural to me.

High school life fifteen years ago was a more simple matter than it now is. Then children of the élite attended Jackson Academy; high school got sons and daughters from the lower and the upper middle class. And there was a distinction. Not in the first year perhaps. Then we were a lot of babes socially. But during the second year began the "cliquing off". (High

school is not a democratic institution in this town, never has been, and never will be. Snobbery is natural here. It exists among school board members and in the faculty. Why pretend that it's a negligible matter among students? Is our town unique in this respect, I wonder?) Clara I liked and admired. Martha was very fond of me. These two stand out distinctly. And Clara, in our sophomore year, ceased passing me notes, slipping her arm around my waist, waiting for me to stroll along toward the street car with her. I manœuvred to get her alone one late October afternoon and, frank, outspoken creature that I was, I asked her why she didn't like me any more. Her answer of course was evasive. seemed just a bit sorry for me. puzzled me. Other girls' deflection didn't matter. But I loved Clara - I do yet. And she represented a factor which baldly left me alone.

She

That

Clara's father was only a mustard merchant in town, out for what he could get. My father held an office of responsibility (and meagre salary) under Uncle Sam. Clara's mother, whom I met once, was a stolid looking German woman, prominent chiefly in her church and lodge societies. My mother, probably because of ill health, had no interest in any sort of club. My father had never worn a dress suit in his life; my mother didn't know what a placecard was; they each used one knife and one fork throughout a meal thank

heavens, they did not use the knife exclusively. Formal affairs with their accoutrements seemed to be a part of Clara's parents' lives. But did just that make the difference between Clara and me? Her people had graduated from high school about twenty years before. My people—well, I'm afraid that they, each the oldest child in a large family, had received not even six years of public school instruction. My father, I know, went to night school after marrying Mother, but a woman couldn't do that sort of thing then. Was it that, a lack of school training for my parents, which made me fall just short of the prerequisites for admittance into Clara's crowd? I used to feel that I had been born twenty five years too soon. could be my own daughter, after even one generation of yearning which found light and education, then maybe circumstances would be better.

If I

Martha's people were like my people. Her crowd became my crowd. Yet always a deadening resentment was within me. Have you noticed how commonly in stories the poor heroine, no matter how humble her home, has parents and grandparents of gentle bearing, wide reading, purely academic tastes? Queer, isn't it?

I went to a small college and lived in the dormitory. Lack of a "bid" bothered me not at all. I had never expected any. I was not naturally a social creature, to say nothing of being a society girl. Sorority girls at the Hall were friendly, not condescending with us others; we sat at table as classes, not cliques. For the first time in my life, I used a bread and butter plate and enjoyed being served. Occasionally I sat at the end of the table with another girl and served with her. Then one Sunday morning (when half the Hall sleeps through the breakfast hour) I

came late into the dining room and was motioned by the preceptress into the one vacant seat at her table. To be near her always made me nervous. She was democratic, as a matter of business, but by natural instincts a condescending sort of person. Beside me sat Dot Jennings, a thoroughly charming girl who had been in my class all through the primary grades at home. She wished to be excused from the table for a moment; so when the dishes of breakfast food were set upon the table, there was I alone to serve the cereal. I did as I had done at all other times, asked the girl at the far end of the table whether she wanted cornflakes or oatmeal. As I served her flakes, Dot slipped into her seat behind the bowl of oatmeal. "But did you serve Miss Stevens first?" she asked me in surprise. Miss Stevens, diplomatic as she is unapproachable, explained, "Mary probably knows I don't eat prepared cereal." I had committed a faux pas, had betrayed my ignorance of gentle behavior, and had done it not only before the preceptress and a table full of fellow students but before Dot Jennings, a society girl from home.

Breakfast somehow ended. I stayed it out. But up in my room I lay and moaned. Why didn't I know an older person must be served first? Why hadn't my folks known it to tell it to me? Why weren't little things like that taught to me, somehow? In a classroom I was at ease; languages were a joy, in literature I "shone", philosophy was a fascinating adventure. I could learn anything in a book. mind was nearly as keen as the best, and because I was no prig, I enjoyed respect in my classes. But here I was unworthy because of being just plain ill bred. Why couldn't I have learned somewhere the intricacies of refined manners?

My

I didn't eat Sunday dinner at the Hall. I bought Hersheys and dates and hiked off alone till late afternoon. For weeks it was torture to meet the eyes of any girl who had been seated at Miss Stevens's table on that Sunday morning. I received my degree there. No, I did not make Phi Beta Kappa in spite of my A's and A-'s and B's. There were brilliant people in our class who could do other things besides learn from books, which was my only forte. The selection was quite just. I have never felt otherwise.

I came home and found myself teaching in high school. (Father has hosts of friends and much influence, although he scorns the habits of polite society.) Jackson Academy had been dissolved, so that students now came to the public high schools from refined homes, from wealthy homes, and from homes with both attributes. The compulsory attendance law brought many to us who would not otherwise have come. Representatives of every stratum of our town life were in school. Cliques existed, as they had when I was a pupil in that school. The lines of demarcation were more numerous and possibly more rigorously drawn. It sounds weak to state this, but the fact is that I sometimes felt embarrassed in exercising authority over young people of fifteen or sixteen or seventeen who were continually mentioned in the papers as "the younger smart set".

After I had been teaching about a year, I was among a dozen or so guests of the head of a department in our high school. Coffee and sandwiches were served. A young woman next me dropped her cup, let it fall, spilling its contents on her dress and the hostess's rug. She flushed as she nervously accepted help. I suffered acutely in sympathy for her confusion, and breathed a thanksgiving that that bit

of awkwardness was not of my creating. A few weeks later at a church social hour, a naive young boy from another high school than mine was speaking with me about his teachers. He said, "You know, it's funny about Miss Clark. She doesn't seem nice enough enough refined enough to be a high school teacher." Then hurriedly, "She's awf'ly nice an' all that, but you know how I mean, don't you?" I did know how he meant about Miss Clark, the teacher who had spilled her cup of coffee at that little evening party. I knew only too well. In her, I recognized a person very like myself whose family perhaps, while respectable and not coarse, were at least inexperienced and indifferent to good form. Then I wondered whether some keen sighted student of mine might feel that I wasn't "refined enough to be a high school teacher".

I suffered for weeks over that thought.

Not so long ago, I attended a little shower. "Among those present were —” well, no one who is my superior, socially, and a few who are inferior. (Certainly, I realize caste in these United States; and if I'm honest enough to recognize "my betters", may I not even the balance by claiming justly superiority in some cases?) Even on this occasion, there appeared my misfaculty for doing the right thing at the right time. The simple gifts being handed out, I noticed a glass fruit knife. And I exclaimed, "What ever will you do with that? I got one as a prize a year ago and it's still in its box." After a moment, some girl declared that she used hers all the time, the glass knife never got black, it cut grapefruit so easily, and it could always be taken back to the store to be resharpened. Instantly I sensed my clumsiness. Someone had brought that gift. And

someone had perhaps been hurt by my crudeness. There it was again: out in company, I had been thoughtless, hence rude.

Do you see what I lack?

While many of my mistakes are the result of carelessness, some of them even now are due either to ignorance of good form or to lack of practice. Just the other day, at a patriotic banquet, I picked up in my hand an unwieldy bit of French pastry. At home, we don't eat cake with a fork.

Can some sort of etiquette classes be conducted in our high schools? Even better, in our grammar schools? Can't thoughtfulness for others since this quality is essential to pleasing deportment be made a religiously emphasized creed for children? Can't they have instruction in the rudiments of gentle manners, those who lack such instruction at home? Required classes of this sort might prove unfortunate, since the superciliousness of some might make others uncomfortable; a course in etiquette would need to be elective. (I understand that in a New York high school such a class was recently requested by the pupils.) Our aim in the public schools is supposed to be "the greatest good for the greatest number". The middle class of people, the less affluent ones, are certainly the greatest number. Would it not be of greatest good to afford these people an opportunity of practising, besides hearing preached, the gentle art of correct behavior?

In glancing over this outcry, I fear that judgment upon me may be too harsh. I have spoken frankly but I must be fair to myself. Not withstanding all the social errors I commit, my family and friends are not wholly crude or unworthy. Let me illustrate.

Without being jazz crazy, we enjoy a sort of music occasionally, a piano with two or three other instruments. Judd, down at the office, has hinted at, even requested of my cousin an invitation for some evening. He jazzes a saxophone rather cleverly. He looks all right, clothes, hair cut, etc., but Cousin Larry says he won't do. I am sorry for Judd in a way. So too is Larry. I want to see whether he won't do. night we decide to ask him over.

One

He has a "date" but if his date will come he will phone us. Not until nine thirty does the phone ring. Judd can come now. So we go after him in our Hup. Judd brings out Miss White and they get in the back seat with Larry. We begin to sing, because we love the harmony of it, "I'll build a bungalungalungalow." Judd, in purposeful discord, spoils our harmony, while Miss White laughs shrilly at our "Noah's ark song". We round a corner quickly. Miss White slides rather heavily onto Larry, accidentally. But she remains there, her fat shoulder and arm resting on my cousin. Judd jerks her to his side and keeps his arm about her. speaks:

He

"Looka here, young woman! The man drivin' is married, and Larry here's engaged, so you jus' don't wanna be tryin' yer tricks on 'em."

(She

His date laughs unpleasantly. laughs a lot and aloud.) "Say, guy, I sh'd whimper. I got s'many men on th' string I'm gettin' tired a draggin' 'em. You're ma fourth tonight, ya know."

Up at the house, Judd caresses her openly. (We are so unmodern as not to enjoy petting parties!) Miss White sits on the piano bench and begins to rag. She plays with her shoulders some people do, you know. As I try to hand Judd a sheet of music, he grasps my arm with, "Shake a leg, old girl. You're too slow." (I have met him

twice before.) During the evening he wants to sing us a song. "It sure is the berries, kid", he explains. No comment follows. His song has been “off color". We are relieved of an unpleasant tension when we drive them to their respective rooming places, our never-again-to-be-guests.

No, they are impossible. Judd won't do. Though he may be eager to pal with Larry, such a friendship isn't likely. He isn't the right kind. He's not our kind. He is no more acceptable to us now than I was to Clara some fifteen years ago. An easily seen gulf, a real vacuum, separates him from us.

It is just such a vacuum, perhaps keeping me even now from Clara, that I want to see filled. It is just such a

need, a want, a lack, that I wish might be provided for in our public school systems. Training to fill this void forms a large part of the course in boarding schools and military schools and finishing schools. But to these, only moneyed parents can secure access for their young people. Can't all the children of all the people have this need conscientiously met?

I cry for the moon, yes. I yearn for the unattainable, yes. I make a paradoxical demand; I want good breeding to be taught. We strive so earnestly to teach culture in speech; why not emphasize equally culture in behavior? It is because such training may be widely helpful that I claim for others' benefit this boon which shall be of "the greatest good for the greatest number".