The Ministry of the Table : Part 2

Religious Education in the Family
by Henry F. Cope

(Page 15 of 22)

3. Methods

Plan for the food of the spirit as seriously at least as for the food of the body. Learn to recognize poisons and also indigestibles. The first are subjects of scandal, bitterness of spirit, malice, impatience, tale-bearing, unkindly criticism, and discontent. The second are subjects too heavy for children: your formal theology would be one of them, your judgments on some intricate subjects may be among them. It is seldom wise to announce negative injunctions, but we can make up our own minds to avoid the conversational poisons and, when they appear, it is always easy to push them out. Even when the unpleasant subject is so common to all and has been so impressive in the day's experience that it threatens to become the sole, absorbing topic, we can say, "We won't talk of it at table! Let's find something better." But we must then have ready the something better; that will be possible only by forethought.

First, save up during the day, or between the meals, the best thoughts, the cheering, kind, ideal, and amusing incidents. Cultivate the habit of saying to yourself, "This is something for us all to enjoy tonight at the table."

Secondly, expect the other members to bring their best. Ask for "the best news of the day" from one and another. Encourage them to tell of good things seen and done and of pleasant and ideal things heard and spoken.

Thirdly, use the incidents as the basis of discussion. Let children tell what they think of moral situations. Often they will quote the opinions of teachers and others. Always you will secure under these circumstances the unreserved expression of what they actually think. A free, informal conversation of this sort where opinions are kindly examined and compared is the finest kind of teaching.

Fourthly, do not forget the grace of humor. To see the odd, whimsical, startling side of the incident or experience trains one to see the interplay of life, to catch a ray of light from all things, and to moderate our tendency to permit our tragedies to pull the heavens down.

Fifthly, use this period to strengthen the consciousness of family unity by recounting past happy experiences and discussing plans of family life. In one family there are few meals from October to Christmas that do not include reminiscences of the summer in the woods and by the water, or from Christmas to June without 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 neces sary, 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 level of conversation at the table is to raise the level of the entire occasion and to make it more than a period of eating, to convert it into a festival, a joyous occasion of the spirit. The meal should be in all things worthy of the unseen guest.

How near we all come together at the table! In its freedom how clearly are we seen by our children! Here they know us for what we are and so learn to interpret life.

I. Reference for Study

Table Talk. Pamphlet. American Institute of Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.

II. Topics Tor Discussion

1. The relation of mental conditions to digestion.

2. The relation of table-etiquette to life-habits.

3. The table as an opportunity for the grace of courtesy, and the relation of this grace to Christian character.

4. Training children in listening as well as in talking at table.

5. Do you regard table-talk and table-manners as having any directly religious values? Why?

Copyright 1915 by The University of Chicago