Blue Book for Parents

Like Henry Ford, who standardized automobiles and put them within reach of everybody, Emily Post made polite manners a commodity available to all by reducing them to a set of simple, exact rules. Today, at 67, Mrs. Post is still undisputed autocrat of U. S. etiquette. Mrs. Post has long had another ambition: to write a Blue Book for raising children. Last week it appeared: Children Are People (Funk & Wagnalls; $2.50).

Mrs. Post likes old-fashioned ways best. "It is frankly my opinion," says she, "that the encouragement of unrestrained self-expression has gone too far, and that what parents and children of the present day really need is a return to the sanity, the simplicity--and the discipline--of ideal home life."

Despite this scolding to Progressive Educators, Mrs. Post's book, drawing heavily on the theories of modern child psychologists, lays down few rules to which Progressives might take exception. Some of her rules:

>Unhappy, quarrelsome parents make unhappy, naughty children. ("Young perceptions invariably probe straight through to every aspect of character with the penetration of X-rays.")

>Never talk about a child or correct him before other people.

> Never break a promise to him.

>Never punish a child by putting him to bed. (Bed should be pleasant.)

>Spank a child only for extreme misdemeanors (e.g., for a temper tantrum, for shouting "Shut up!").

>Never be afraid to tell a child you don't know the answer to a question.

>Never open a child's mail.

>A child should eat neatly at two and a half.

>He should never say "Yes." Correct: "Yes, mother." "Yes, Mr. Jones." (But during play hours, a child may say "Yeah.")

>A child should hold his mother's chair at table, fetch his father's hat, never shout upstairs, always knock before entering a bedroom.

>Girls should wear hats outdoors. (Hatlessness is a "definite sign of inferior class.")

>Dual standard or not, no girl should be introduced as "Miss" before 16, no boy as "Mr." before 18.

>The age at which a girl may go to the movies with a boy depends on circumstances. In a small town, she may do so at twelve; in a large city in winter, when dark comes early, she may not at 15.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.