To the Editor:
This is in response to Donald Goss '53's column "Good Manners in the Dartmouth Education" (Feb. 18). I was pleased to see such an article acutally printed on this campus. As an undergraduate, I too, saw the same general lack of manners when I came to school last year. Coming from the south, where, despite common misconception up here, manners are still a great part of everyday life, I was used to opening doors for people, saying "please" and "thank you" and greeting people on the street, and I expected the same degree of politeness in response.
This is common courtesy in the south; you can find a person who is both racist and sexist in ideology who will still open doors for anyone (including those of the races against which he discriminates), still smile to a stranger on the street, still be polite. That is what I grew up around, so that is how I thought manners were supposed to be involved in everyday life.
During my Freshman Week I held a door open for a friend of mine as we walked into Thayer Dining Hall. She looked at me with shock, wondering why I was doing this. She gave me a puzzled smile and walked in, commenting that in the north (where she was raised) you were lucky to have someone throw the door open behind him with enough force that you could scurry in quickly before the door closed on you. Needless to say, this caught me off guard. Then I started paying more attention to the courtesies (or lack thereof) around campus. I saw almost no politeness in the general student (and faculty) body. I hold doors open for people, rarely hearing a "thank you" except from my friends, who have grown to expect this from me. This just seems wrong to me.
Mr. Goss makes a good point about the two individuals walking on the sidewalk, not bothering to slip into single file to let another walk the other way. I almost yelled at people the first time that this happened to me. This is simple impoliteness. It seems that up here people are much more territorial than where I'm from - no one wants to give way, no one wants to make eye contact, everyone wants to have things the way he wants it as fast as he can get it, without the next person getting it first.
Mr. Goss ends his article with the statement, "This is the time when our undergraduates are striving to move from children to adults and ... are indulging in what they think are rites of passage ... But all of those don't add up to adulthood." Now, I do not claim to be more adult than anyone else on this campus - adulthood is a rather vague term that can't be defined that easily - and I certainly do not mean to say that I don't indulge in any permutation of his list of "rites of passage," but I do claim to be much more courteous in my natural behavior than the average Dartmouth student.
Through all the infinite attacks on the Greek system (of which I am a proud member) as the root of all evils on this campus, most people fail to blame the general lack of manners as the problem (as this lack is apparent on both sides of the Greek system argument).
I agree with Mr. Goss and his charge, "Let's start by saying 'thank you.'"
Thank you.
RUSSELL DALFERES '96
