[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”4.4.0″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.4.0″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.4.0″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.5.1″ hover_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing perhaps, is better calculated to raise the character of youth to the esteem of all worthy men, than a proper attention to good manners,\u201d wrote eadmaster Charles C. Andrews in his History of the New York African Free Schools<\/em> (1830). Having good manners offered much to the school. The Lancasterian System, for instance, relied on peer instruction, so it was necessary that students showed deference to one another for this system to operate. Andrews designed lessons to incorporate good manners into the curriculum, citing a 1790 pamphlet, The School for Good Manners<\/em>, as inspiration. This pamphlet, written by C. C. Dean of the Massachusetts Sunday School Society, contains rules of etiquette addressed to \u201cyou,\u201d thereby making the lessons applicable to both the boys and the girls at Andrews\u2019 school.<\/p>\n For Andrews, good manners appeared to be one method of racial uplift. In a note to the parents of his students, Andrews warns, \u201cYour words, your manner, your actions, are all observed and practiced by your children. Therefore strive to think twice before you speak to, or in the presence of a child.\u201d Andrews, in other words, sought to \u201craise the character\u201d of his students\u2019 parents as well by encouraging them to practice good manners at home.<\/p>\n Andrews, seemingly unconscious of his paternalistic tone in his letter to the parents, may not have considered how an African American audience would have received The School for Good Manners<\/em>. For instance, one lesson from the pamphlet is, \u201cBe humble, submissive, and obedient to those, whose authority, by nature or providence, hath a just claim on your subjection….\u201d An audience of white children, whom Dean was almost certainly writing for, would have received this message very differently than an audience comprised of the children of current or former slaves. After all, it\u2019s precisely the belief in a \u201cjust claim on [their] subjection\u201d that the delegates at the Colored Conventions worked to unsettle. The 1853 Call for the Colored National Convention<\/em>, read by NYAFS #2 alumnus, James McCune Smith, stated, \u201cOur warfare is not one where force can be employed; we battle against false and hurtful customs, and against the great errors of opinion which support such customs.\u201d Smith, who likely wrote the Call, seems to have responded directly to this lesson instilled by The School of Good Manners<\/em> in his refutation of the \u201ccustoms\u201d and \u201cerrors of opinion\u201d which falsely shaped a \u201cjust claim on [their] subjection.\u201d In this instance, Smith recognized that the work of the delegates would need to overturn lessons as basic as those taught in school. Other lessons from the pamphlet, however, were less problematic. \u201cBe ever desirous of learning\u201d and \u201cLove the school\u201d are two of the pamphlet\u2019s chief precepts, and indeed, the NYAFS alumni at the conventions were among the primary advocates for education in the convention debates. The final precept\u2014\u201cCovet future honor, which only virtue and wisdom can procure\u201d\u2014seems to have both adumbrate and encapsulate the work of the NYAFS alumni at the conventions: using their education to fight for future honor.<\/p>\n See below to browse through\u00a0Dean’s The School of Good Manners <\/em>or click here<\/a> to read the whole text.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_code admin_label=”Book: The School of Good Manners” _builder_version=”4.4.0″]\n\n