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GEORGE WASHINGTON'SRULES OF CIVILITY
Traced to their Sources and Restored
BYMONCURE D. CONWAY
1890
Inscribed
TO MY SONEUSTACE CONWAY
THE RULES OF CIVILITY.
Among the manuscript books of George Washington, preserved in the StateArchives at Washington City, the earliest bears the date, written in itby himself, 1745. Washington was born February 11, 1731 O.S., so thatwhile writing in this book he was either near the close of hisfourteenth, or in his fifteenth, year. It is entitled "Forms ofWriting," has thirty folio pages, and the contents, all in his boyishhandwriting, are sufficiently curious. Amid copied forms of exchange,bonds, receipts, sales, and similar exercises, occasionally, in ornatepenmanship, there are poetic selections, among them lines of a religioustone on "True Happiness." But the great interest of the book centres inthe pages headed: "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Companyand Conversation." The book had been gnawed at the bottom by MountVernon mice, before it reached the State Archives, and nine of the 110Rules have thus suffered, the sense of several being lost.
The Rules possess so much historic interest that it seems surprisingthat none of Washington's biographers or editors should have given themto the world. Washington Irving, in his "Life of Washington," excitesinterest in them by a tribute, but does not quote even one. Sparksquotes 57, but inexactly, and with his usual literary manipulation;these were reprinted (1886, 16°) by W.O. Stoddard, at Denver, Colorado;and in Hale's "Washington" (1888). I suspect that the old biographers,more eulogistic than critical, feared it would be an ill service toWashington's fame to print all of the Rules. There might be a scandal inthe discovery that the military and political deity of America had, evenin boyhood, written so gravely of the hat-in-hand deference due tolords, and other "Persons of Quality," or had concerned himself withthings so trivial as the proper use of the fork, napkin, and toothpick.Something is said too about "inferiours," before whom one must not "Actag'tt y'e Rules Moral." But in 1888 the Rules were subjected to carefuland literal treatment by Dr. J.M. Toner, of Washington City, in thecourse of his magnanimous task of preserving, in the Library ofCongress, by exact copies, the early and perishing note-books andjournals of Washington. This able literary antiquarian has printed histranscript of the Rules (W.H. Morrison: Washington, D.C. 1888), and thepamphlet, though little known to the general public, is much valued bystudents of American history. With the exception of one word, to whichhe called my attention, Dr. Toner has given as exact a reproduction ofthe Rules, in their present damaged condition, as can be made in print.The illegible parts are precisely indicated, without any conjecturalinsertions, and young Washington's spelling and punctuation subjected tono literary tampering.
Concerning the source of these remarkable Rules there have been severalguesses. Washington Irving suggests that it was probably his intercoursewith the Fairfax family, and his ambition to acquit himself well intheir society, that set him upon "compiling a code of morals andmanners." (Knickerbocker Ed. i. p. 30.) Sparks, more cautiously, says:"The most remarkable part of the book is that in which is compiled asystem of maxims and regulations of conduct, drawn from miscellaneoussources." (i. p. 7.) D