Excerpt from “How A Student Should Behave” by John of Garland (13th Century)
The sage of Miletus set down these rules of polite behaviour for which we should be grateful. Regulate your household soberly; do your civic duties cheerfully; have a word of greeting for strangers as for friends; do your utmost to avoid altercations with irate associates; with a smile and a witticism cover up the faults of others; be faultless at table, glad even to entertain your enemies; bear your misfortunes with fortitude and do not let your head be turned by good fortune…Even though you be a Socrates, if you have rude manners, you are a ditch-digger.
- from The Viking Portable Medieval Reader, which takes it from Morale Scholarium, trans. L.J. Paetow (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1927).
