Gr. 5-up. Copied out by Washington when he was a teenager, these once widely circulated rules of comportment (the seventeenth- and eighteen-century version of "Desiderata") cover dos and don'ts of dress, table manners, polite conversation, and general behavior. Since the language is sometimes old-fashioned, if not downright impenetrable, a helpful modern translation has been anonymously supplied for each precept: "When in company, put not your hands to any part of the body, not usually discovered. Don't fidget or scratch your private parts in public." Much of the advice involves proper deportment around one's social betters or inferiors, which is likely to cause young readers' eyes to glaze over. Still, there is plenty of timeless common sense in this little book--and the "translations" not only add dollops of humor but also make what is plainly a male-centered text more generally applicable by the interpolation of an occasional female pronoun. Washington purportedly tried to follow these rules all his life--and look where it got him. John Peters
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Product Description
George-isms (also known as The 110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour) is a text that George Washington wrote down when he was fourteen years old and used as a touchstone all his life. Now, George Washington's one-hundred-ten rules are reprinted and handily "translated" into modern language that any young reader can understand.
As a moral compass; as a glimpse of history; or as a peek into the mind of our Founding Father, George-isms is a book that no young American should be without.
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