Leading Blog


« First Look: Leadership Books for January 2010 | Leading Blog Main Page | The One Question You Should Ask Now »



01.03.10

George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior

Weekend Supplement

If you're considering some personal development goals for 2010, you couldn't go wrong reviewing the 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior once copied down by George Washington.

washington
By age sixteen, Washington had copied out by hand the 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. They are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. Presumably they were copied out as part of an exercise in penmanship assigned by young Washington's schoolmaster. The first English translation of the French rules appeared in 1640, and are ascribed to Francis Hawkins the twelve-year-old son of a doctor.

Today many, if not all of these rules, sound a little fussy if not downright silly. It would be easy to dismiss them as outdated and appropriate to a time of powdered wigs and quills, but they reflect a focus that is increasingly difficult to find. The rules have in common a focus on other people rather than the narrow focus of our own self-interests that we find so prevalent today. Fussy or not, they represent more than just manners. They are the small sacrifices that we should all be willing to make for the good of all and the sake of living together.

Check them out at Foundations Magazine.

leadership blog

Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:11 AM
| Comments (0) | Weekend Supplement



Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)




Main Page | LeadingArticles | LeaderShop | Connections | Communicore | LeadingThoughts


Copyright ©1998-2015 LeadershipNow / M2 Communications All Rights Reserved
All materials contained in http://www.LeadershipNow.com are protected by copyright and trademark laws and may not be used for any purpose whatsoever other than private, noncommercial viewing purposes. Derivative works and other unauthorized copying or use of stills, video footage, text or graphics is expressly prohibited. LeadershipNow is a trademark of M2 Communications.