Time is, they think,
far too precious to be occupied with ceremonies which appear
empty and meaningless. It can, they say, be much more profitably filled
with other and more useful occupations. In any discussion of American manners
it would be unfair to leave out of consideration their indifference
to ceremony and their highly developed sense of the value of time,
but in saying this I do not forget that many Americans are devout ritualists,
and that these find both comfort and pleasure in ceremony,
which suggests that after all there is something to be said for the Chinese
who have raised correct deportment almost to the rank of a religion.
The youth of America have not unnaturally caught the spirit of their elders,
so that even children consider themselves as almost on a par
with their parents, as almost on the same plane of equality;
but the parents, on the other hand, also treat them as if they were equals,
and allow them the utmost freedom. While a Chinese child
renders unquestioning obedience to his parents' orders,
such obedience as a soldier yields to his superior officer,
the American child must have the whys and the wherefores
duly explained to him, and the reason for his obedience made clear.
It is not his parent that he obeys, but expediency and the dictates of reason.
Here we see the clear-headed, sound, common-sense business man in the making.
The early training of the boy has laid the foundation for the future man.
The child too has no compunction in correcting a parent even before strangers,
and what is stranger still the parent accepts the correction in good part,
and sometimes even with thanks.
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