7. Recall any especially helpful forms of the use of this
day in your childhood, or coming under your observation.
CHAPTER XIV

THE MINISTRY OF THE TABLE

Shall the periods for meals be for the body only
or shall we see in them happy occasions for the
enriching of the higher life? Upon the answer
depends whether the table shall be little more than
a feeding-trough or the scene of constant mental
and character development. In some memories
the meals stand out only in terms of food, while
pictures of dishes and fragments of food fill the
mind; in others there are borne through all life
pictures of happy faces and thoughts of cheer, of
knowledge gained and ideals created in the glow of
conversation.
§ I. THE OPPORTUNITY

The family is together as a united group at the
table more than an5rwhere besides. Table-talk, by
its informality and by the aid of the pleasures of
social eating, is one of the most influential means
of education. Depend upon it, children are more
impressed by table-talk than by teacher-talk or
by pulpit-talk. They expect moralizing on the
other occasions, but here the moral lessons throw
out no warning; they meet no opposition; they are
— or ought to be, if they would be effective — ^a

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The Ministry of the Table 165

natural part of ordinary conversation and, by being
part and parcel of everyday affairs, they become
normally related to life. The table is the best
opportunity for informal, indirect teaching, and
this is for children the natural and only really
effective form of moral instruction.
The child comes to these social occasions with a
hungry mind as well as with an empty stomach.
