Rules of Civility: The 110 Precepts that Guided Our First President in War and Peace [Hardcover]

George Washington (Author), Richard Brookhiser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 22, 2003

As a young man, George Washington admired and copied into a little notebook 110 rules for civil behavior that originated from a Jesuit textbook. Washington took these rules very much to heart, and that handwritten list remained with him throughout his life, serving as inspiring guidance from his military days at Valley Forge and Yorktown to his two terms as president.Guidance that at first sounds archaic, it is in fact just as relevant as -- indeed, possibly more necessary than -- it was nearly three hundred years ago. Richard Brookhiser makes clear the pertinence of these rules for modern readers and proposes that now more than ever we will be wise to follow the modest example of such a great man. Witty and insightful, Brookhiser's commentary offers real-world instruction in the lost art of self-discipline, and his new preface provides a compelling and timely context in which to employ these guidelines today.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The author of Founding Father (1996 ) provides a new edition of the book of moral and social precepts that served as a guide to virtue and etiquette for the first president of the U.S. Capitalizing on the success of his glowing biography of George Washington, Brookhiser has unearthed the slim volume of rules of civilized behavior that the youthful Washington laboriously copied into a notebook. According to both his contemporaries and his biographers, Washington valued good manners and painstakingly cultivated his own brand of formal courtesy. These seemingly quaint and archaic instructions, accompanied by the editor's often humorous commentaries and illustrated with period portraits and sketches, offer some timeless suggestions on how to cope with the complexities of social discourse. A delightful browsing item as well as a representative slice of eighteenth-century etiquette. Margaret Flanagan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Brookhiser adds his own amusing afterthoughts to George Washington's collection of behavior rules that were badly needed in the eighteenth century. Since civility is in even worse disrepair today, it's too bad that the father of our country can't make a return visit!.

According to both his contemporaries and his biographers, Washington valued good manners and painstakingly cultivated his own brand of formal courtesy. These seemingly quaint and archaic instructions, accompanied by the editor's often humorous commentaries... offer timeless suggestions on how to cope with the complexities of social discourse.... Delightful.

(Booklist )

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press; 1 edition (March 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813922186
• ISBN-13: 978-0813922188
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,219 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars recipe for decency, February 17, 2001

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The RULES OF CIVILITY (Hardcover)

Though certainly the most ubiquitous, George Washington has also always been the most mysterious of the Founding Fathers; the one whose greatness is most difficult for us to comprehend. Here was a man who was less well spoken and less brilliant than many of his peers. He was not a great philosophical or political thinker. He lost most of the military engagements he led. And yet, the men of whom we think more highly in these regards almost universally revered him. What quality was it that made men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and the Marquise de Lafayette defer to him ? The answer must surely lie in the character of the man, and character seems to be a uniquely difficult quality to convey in writing. Perhaps it is actually impossible to describe the quality itself; instead the effects of it must be described.

One example from Washington's life seems to me to stand out above all others : his handling of the Newburgh Conspiracy. When, after the War, disgruntled officers, led by Horatio Gates, circulated a letter suggesting that the Army march on Congress to demand back pay and hinted at taking control of the government, Washington used a simple but elegant ploy to defuse the crisis. Having summoned the men to his tent so that he could read a letter meant to dissuade them from their proposed course of action, he paused, reached into a pocket, and withdrew a pair of glasses, which, thanks in large part to his vanity, few knew he even required. As he unfolded them and put them on, he said :

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.

It is reported, perhaps with some hyperbole, that men wept; but at any rate, the insurrection crumbled.

It is hard for us, jaded as we have become about our leaders, to imagine the drama of this scene and the effect it must have had on his comrades, but then again, we are unfortunate enough to have a recent Commander in Chief whose preference in underwear, bizarre sexual proclivities, and genital deformities were all common knowledge. It is perhaps instructive that when he was at Boys' State as a teenager (as related in David Maraniss's excellent biography First in His Class), Bill Clinton devoted himself to one single purpose and achieved it : to have his picture taken with President Kennedy. At a similar age, sixteen year old George Washington copied by hand 110 maxims from a guidebook on manners originally compiled by Jesuits in 1595. Both men were trying to improve themselves, but there's a key difference : Clinton sought a photo opportunity that would be personally gratifying and which he might use to advance his political career down the road; Washington sought out those precepts which would help him to discipline himself, to develop his character, and to make himself more presentable to society. The fundamental object of Clinton's effort was personal aggrandizement, of Washington's, to make himself a better person.

In this little book Richard Brookhiser, who wrote a terrific biography of Washington, reproduces the 110 "Rules of Civility" in a much easier form to read than the original text (for example, check out an online version), along with a brief introductory essay and explanatory, often amusing, comments on many of the rules. Here are some examples (with Brookhiser's comments in italics where applicable) :

(1) Every action done in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those that are present.

(4) In the presence of others, sing not to yourself with a humming noise or drum with your fingers or feet.

Don't carry a boom box either.

(13) Kill no vermin, as fleas, lice, ticks, etc., in the sight of others. If you see any filth or thick

spittle put your foot dexterously upon it, if it be upon the clothes of your companions put it off privately, and if it be upon your own clothes return thanks to him who puts it off.

Useful advice on the frontier. In 1748, when Washington was sixteen, he went surveying in

the Blue Ridge mountains and was obliged to sleep under "one thread bare blanket with double its weight of vermin." The last two clauses are useful anywhere: Don't embarrass those you help, and however embarrassed you may be to discover that you have been in a ludicrous or disgusting situation, don't forget to thank those who helped you out of it.

As the last example demonstrates, many of the rules seem at first to be hopelessly antiquated, but on further reflection, in the concern they display for personal dignity and humility, thoughtfulness of and respect for others, maintenance of civil standards, they are truly timeless. The final precept is the most famous and allows Brookhiser to sum up all that have come before :

(110) Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

The only open reminder of what has been implicit all along: Petty morals and large morals are linked; there are no great spirits who do not pay attention to both; these little courtesies reflect, as in a pocket mirror, the social and the moral order.

And this is the significance of Washington's attention to these seemingly petty rules, that the conscience is only a spark and that it may be extinguished unless one labors to maintain it. Because Washington did take that labor seriously throughout his life, he had the reserve of respect and honor built up with others which enabled him to cow the rebellious officers at Newburgh and had the personal moral fiber which enabled him, at the vital moments in the life of the new republic, to refuse political power, both when it was there for the taking and when it was freely offered. In some sense, these 110 maxims helped to create the man of whom King George III said, when he heard that General Washington planned to surrender command of the Continental Army to retire to his farm :

If he indeed does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.

That assessment, from a humiliated enemy, was accurate then, and the bloody course of every subsequent revolution, suggests that it may understate the case.

GRADE : A

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should Be Standard Issue, January 4, 2002

By 

sergeant_al (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The RULES OF CIVILITY (Hardcover)

If I win the lottery I am buying the entire supply and handing them out on the street corners. Our society would be a lot more tolerable if everyone followed these simple rules of manners and courtesy. What would Washington have written about inconsiderate cell phone use? A must read for everyone. Buy this as a gift for your teenager or college student. Start your own revolution against boorish behavior.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The rules are still valid today, August 21, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The RULES OF CIVILITY (Hardcover)

What could be better than to learn what made the most important man in American history act the way he did? The precepts are as vaild today as they were in George Washington's time. Richard Brookhiser's editoral comments are educational as well as entertaining.

Being a rather short book, I recommend reading it a least twice.