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How Did George Washington Wrote The Rules Of Civility And Magnificent Behavior

Decent Essays

Washington, George. Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. Miami, FL: BN Pub., 2007.

George Washington, the Father of our Country, is one of the most well-known men in American History. He is revered by the American people because he was such an honorable man. However, he wasn’t always that way… sometime before he turned 16 George Washington copied The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation into a personal journal. It is believed that these rules were derived from a list of maxims compiled by French Jesuits in the 1950s. In the 1640s, that list was translated into English by Francis Hawkins. “In subsequent editions of Hawkin's book other writers added to the maxims. It is unclear how [George] Washington acquired the Hawkin version of the maxims, who instructed him to copy them, or why changes were made to the original list of rules.”1
Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation is a detailed summary of the proper etiquette of the time. The book covers everything from actions to avoid in public to mannerism expected …show more content…

Shake not the head, feet or legs; roll not the eyes; lift not one eyebrow higher than the other, wry not the mouth, and bedew no man’s face with your spittle by [approaching too near] him [when] you speak” (10). I break this rule almost daily and as much as it pains me to say I know it is not ‘right’ to do. People today have gotten into such a habit of only looking out for themselves that we no longer care about what our actions are saying. The book reminded me of this problem and I thought it was very enlightening to see that this was a problem that spans over generations. The fact that it was being addressed leads me to believe that we were not the only generation to roll our eyes as we walked away from our

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