"MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN"

Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith delivered one of the most successful talks of the year in the Living Room of the Union yesterday evening on "The Making of a Gentleman."

The two great essentials of a gentleman, no matter what his position in life may be, are toleration and sympathy: without these qualities all the culture in the world cannot make a true gentleman; with them the simplest, most uneducated countryman is the equal of a belted earl. Among others, he chose, to illustrate his point, the story of the rough soldier-hero at the dinner-table of his commanding officer. It was in India, and, while the soup was being served, ice as precious in that climate, as diamonds, was passed around to cool the champagne. The soldier took a lump, glanced round, and dropped it in his soup: and silently, apparently as a matter of course the officers followed his example.

Mr. Smith told many other stories also, and read passages from two of his books "The Old-Fashioned Gentleman," and "The Under Dog"; all to show how in different walks of life, toleration and sympathy are the prime requisites of a gentleman.

Yet here in America, and especially in New York, in nine cases out of ten, one cannot get a civil answer to a civil question. In Europe the reverse is the rule and often mere strangers will go quite out of their way to do what to us would seem an extraordinary act of courtesy.

In closing Mr. Smith defined a polite man as one who would answer a strange lady civilly when she questioned him on the street; a good-mannered man, as one who would take off his hat to her; but a courteous one as one who would go out of his way to see her across the street.