🇺🇸 PRESIDENTIAL ADVICE: “Drink not nor talk with your mouth full”

Happy birthday to our first president! Today is the actual (as opposed to the observed) birthday of George Washington (1732–1799). Homeschoolers will certainly study his presidency, and his role in the American Revolution. But how about George Washington the teenage student?

Quite a few of George Washington’s school papers have survived to the present day (amazing!), and one of the best known is a copywork assignment commonly called “George Washington’s Rules of Civility.” Here’s a complete listing of all 110 of these rules, ranked according to popular preference, from Washington’s Mount Vernon:

• ➢ Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour in Company (mountvernon.org)

This is a wonderful piece of history to share and discuss with your students. Many of the rules are still perfect today for copying onto your homeschool bulletin board:

• • Drink not nor talk with your mouth full.
• • Put not off your Clothes in the presence of Others, nor go out your Chamber half Drest.
• • If You Cough, Sneeze, Sigh, or Yawn, do it not Loud but Privately.
• • Wear not your Clothes foul, unript or Dusty, but See they be Brush’d once every day.
• • Run not in the Streets, neither go too slowly nor with Mouth open; go not Shaking yr Arms.
• • Gaze not on the marks or blemishes of Others and ask not how they came.
• • Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation.
• • Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Celestial fire Called Conscience.

These were not original compositions, as some people have suggested. They were in fact common rules of conduct that had been in circulation for over a century and were often used as writing exercises for children. Go down the list with your students and ask: Which rules still apply today? Which seem outdated? What new rules do we follow today that Washington missed? A hundred interesting homeschool discussions will follow.

What other American anniversaries have you and your students been studying in your homeschool this Orion Term? 🇺🇸

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