Nothing is of more importance to success in any work than conversation. How to converse so as to win and not wound, to both give and gain, is an accomplishment which has very nearly passed into the list of lost arts. And here again good form comes to the rescue, and by its placid but arbitrary code offsets that lawlessness into which even good men have fallen in excess of zeal.  
Sixty years ago the rule for children was that they “should be seen and not heard,” so that a child’s talk was almost unknown in a company of adults. This was so wrong that it has reacted in a sort of wild freedom upon the part of the children which, uncorrected, develops into the adult chatter-box and gossip, than which no character is more to be dreaded.
 
Bad habits of conversation are very hard to break, and since it is by the “calves (or 91 sacrifice) of the lips” that we are especially to honor God, by “words fitly spoken,” and that we are to “give a reason for the faith that is in us,” it is not of small importance that we should know how to talk. Begin with the baby, therefore, so that the child shall grow up into correct forms of speech, and into that regard of all good form which shall not only give him at once the ears, but the hearts of the people.
 
I scarcely need to say, Do not use slang, for this is universally understood as out of harmony with Christian practise; but yet it may not be amiss to say that even the world of society, whose laws of behavior we are considering, would ostracize one whose language was punctuated with much slang. An oath would be more tolerable to so-called “polite ears.”
 
Money, or prominence, will for a time give a man social passport in spite of all manner of ill-breeding. He can buy a place and recognition even from those who despise 92 him; but this is not the sort of recognition in the interests of which I am writing. I am pleading for that which shall gain a hearing for the custodians of a truth without which no man can live, and for the reception of which few are as yet prepared. It is for the sake of the honest souls who are in the darkness of the world’s “culture” that I am pleading. They have a right to know all that the Spirit of God has been sending to his people concerning that all-round righteousness that makes up the sum of that whole gospel for the whole man, which is included in an uttermost salvation; and some tongues must be so cultured as to talk the way open for truth just as effectually as a wag can do it for fun, a singer open it for a song, or money open it for blind boorishness; and the quiet mother in the home must have a large share of this work.
 
To this end teach the child that he must listen when any other child is speaking until 93 he has finished; never to interrupt, or, if it is necessary to give some information, to say, for instance: “I beg your pardon, but,—” or, “Willie, if you please, was it not on Wednesday instead of Tuesday?” Any interruption simply for getting in a word should never be indulged. Teach him to wait patiently for a fair chance to speak, no matter how great may be the temptation to “thrust in his oar.” This should not be construed to include those playful inter............