Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Breeding, Good

Breeding, Good; an expression which is used to denote the proper deportment of persons in the external offices and decorum of social intercourse.

Good breeding necessarily implies civility; though a person, without being well bred, may be civil: the one is the result of good-nature; the other, of good sense joined to experience, observation, and attention.

The most perfect degree of good breeding is only to be acquired by great knowledge of the world, and keeping the best company. To attain this desirable object, we would advise parents not to suffer their children, after a certain age, to spend the greatest part of their time among servants, or menial dependents; from whom neither good language nor proper manners can be expected; and who seldom fail to instruct the susceptible young mind in all the low cunning, and artifices of the vulgar. Good-breeding adorns and enforces virtue and truth; it connects, it endears, and while it indulges the just liberty, restrains that indecent licentiousness of conversation, which alienates and provokes. Great talents render a man famous; great merit procures respect; great learning, esteem: but good-breeding alone can ensure love and affection. Hence it deserves to be peculiarly recommended to women, as the greatest ornament to such as possess beauty, and the safest refuge for those of a contrary description. It facilitates the conquests, and decorates the triumphs of beauty; while, on the other hand, it atones, in some degree, for the want of that quality. On the whole, good-breeding is attended with so many advantageous effects, that, though it cannot be called a virtue in itself, it may be jusly considered as one of the most pleasing and useful accomplishments; inasmuch as it has a direct tendency to check the violence of all the turbulent passions, and to render the path through life more comfortable and easy.