# Finishing school



## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

Back in the times when it was common for young ladies to attend finishing schools, where did young gentlemen learn the manly versions of what was taught there?


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## MikeDT (Aug 22, 2009)

I think finishing schools where only really common with the bourgeoisie. AFAIK proletariat class people didn't attend such places.

Finishing schools are still around though, like this establishment: https://www.finishingacademy.co.uk/ Which offers courses for both ladies and gentlemen.


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

MikeDT said:


> I think finishing schools where only really common with the bourgeoisie. AFAIK proletariat class people didn't attend such places.


You are correct. That is why I said "young ladies" and "young gentlemen". During the times to which I am referring, these terms would have implicitly excluded the working class.


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

JJR512 said:


> Back in the times when it was common for young ladies to attend finishing schools, where did young gentlemen learn the manly versions of what was taught there?


I can't think of any direct equivalent. Young gentlemen from the type of family whose daughters attended finishing school would normally aspire to university, the army, the civil service, diplomatic corps or colonial service, or perhaps the church, having first attended public school. Education at public school was normally intended to equip young men for the competitive entry examinations for such careers.

Finishing school attended more to the social arts a young lady might be expected to possess.


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

Boarding school and college.

Sort of. It depends on what you mean by "the manly version of what was taught there." The roles of men and women in the world were, at the time, specialized and different from one another, so women and men learned different things, just as engineers learn different things than maitre d's do.

The purpose of finishing school was to teach young ladies several things:

- How to get a husband with money. The equivalent for men could be looked at two ways, depending on how you understand "equivalent," either (a) by having money, which, for the most part, can't be taught ... you have to inherit it, and to the limited extent the ability to earn it can be taught, it was; or (b) by knowing how to get a wife with money, which was approximately taught, though some potential wives with money are sufficiently flighty and unpredictable that such a thing is impossible to teach or even understand.

- How not to ruffle feathers in social situations. Which men learned, a tiny bit anyway, in school, and considerably more from the wives who went to the finishing schools.

- How to create a veneer of intellectual sophistication by knowing various names, foreign words and phrases, and how to pronounce them. Also taught to men.

The above relates to the US, as that's where the OP (like me) is. Nobody in the US has aspired to the army, the civil service or colonial service since the 19th Century.


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

It was mainly the social aspects to which I was referring. I didn't know much about finishing schools, and Wikipedia didn't say much about what they actually taught, so I asked my mother who said it was pretty much social graces, manners, things of that nature. That's what led me to my original question. Gentlemen also need to have these social skills. Gentlemen need to know which fork is used first on a formal place setting, how to introduce people to each other, when to take a hat off and when to leave it on, and so on. Etiquette and protocol, basically; or, like you said, Starch: "How not to ruffle feathers in social situations."

One thing you said confuses me, though: "Nobody in the US has aspired to the army...since the 19th Century." What do you mean by that? If people didn't want to enter into military service, there would still be a draft.


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

One or two additional points that have occurred to me, partly in response to other posting.

In the UK, military service continues to be a highly popular goal for young upper class men - I'm slightly surprised to learn it is not seen in a similar light in the USA.

Regarding finishing schools, I did not mention my suspicion that much of their support may have come from nouveau riche families of fairly modest backgrounds (I'm talking here about the late 19th/early 20th centuries), who happened to have done well 'in trade', and who wanted their daughters to acquire the social graces their parents suspected themselves of lacking - because of their humble background. No doubt this was regularly made clear to them in their dealings with their social 'superiors'. Quite possibly they hoped their daughters would thereby make friends in and gain entry to a higher social echelon.

Such social graces as the male equivalents would have learned, would have been acquired incidentally at school and university or in the regiment, as well as at home in the normal way.


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## Cruiser (Jul 21, 2006)

Starch said:


> Nobody in the US has aspired to the army, the civil service or colonial service since the 19th Century.


Huh????? If so I wonder why there is such fierce competition to get into the service academies? You might say that it is the opportunity to get a free education; however, given the hardships of academy life and the military commitment required upon graduation, there has to be more to it than free school. That would be like me saying that I joined the Navy just to get the free pea coat. The fact is I made them also throw in a free watch cap to get me.

Cruiser


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

Are there any schools or other places in America now where a man can learn the finer points of etiquette, protocol, social graces, etc., if for some reason these things were not learned growing up?


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## Epaminondas (Oct 19, 2009)

JJR512 said:


> Are there any schools or other places in America now where a man can learn the finer points of etiquette, protocol, social graces, etc., if for some reason these things were not learned growing up?


If one is carefully observent of behavior, dress, etc. , probably at most private, liberal arts colleges, located in the South (e,g, Suwannee, Davidson, H/S, W&L, etc.) - if not there, then certainly nowehere.


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

Unfortunately, I have no intention of ever attending a private liberal arts college in the South. It's not that I'm morally opposed to this, or anything, it's just that this doesn't fall anywhere near the plan that I like to imagine the rest of my life will at least somewhat resemble.


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## ajo (Oct 22, 2007)

The best finishing school i know of is life with its trials and tribulations. Basic manners and etiquette are generally imparted by our parents and or peers. The social graces are simple to practice at heart. What do specifically think you need to learn?


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

Details.

I don't know what I don't know, but I feel there's probably a lot that I don't know. Most of the types of things I want to learn can probably be found in _Emily Post's Etiquette_. I learn something new every time I open that book, and since I'm still learning new things, that indicates to me there's probably still a lot I have left to learn. But that's not the kind of book that's easy to just read straight through, and anyway, I learn better in instructor-led structured learning situations. Etiquette, protocol, social graces, etc.

It's not that I think I'm a crude, unsophisticated slob. I've had a decent middle-class upbringing, but one that rarely got any more formal than business-casual. Since I was never in any more formal situations, I never learned how to deal with them. I don't honestly expect that my life is about to get any more formal; I just feel that I'd like to learn those kinds of things. There's undoubtedly room for improvement in my day-to-day decorum as well, and I'm sure it trickles down.


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

JJR512 said:


> Most of the types of things I want to learn can probably be found in _Emily Post's Etiquette_.


Speaking of details, here's a telling one: note that it's _Emily_ Post's Etiquette, not Edward's; similarly, it's _Amy_ Vanderbilt's book, not Al's, and nobody writes to Abner Van Buren or Andrew Landers.

In the heyday of finishing schools, the stuff they taught was largely the province of women. To the extent men needed to worry about the full-on social milieu, their wives worried about it for them. The world of strictly male-to-male interaction was always more about bonhommie, backslapping and being able to hold one's liquor than carefully worked-out propriety.

The system of high-level etiquette was always largely maintained by women. As the world has changed, so that women with talent and means now go to business and medical school rather than finishing school, that system isn't really maintained by anyone.


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

Starch said:


> Speaking of details, here's a telling one: note that it's _Emily_ Post's Etiquette, not Edward's; similarly, it's _Amy_ Vanderbilt's book, not Al's, and nobody writes to Abner Van Buren or Andrew Landers.
> 
> ...that system isn't really maintained by anyone.


Right, exactly, it doesn't really apply only to women anymore. Actually, I can't think of anything I've read in that book that _ever_ was only for ladies. For example, the last thing I looked up in that book was about how to tip at hotels and restaurants, for another AAAC member asking the same. I can't imagine an early-20th-Century gentleman allowing his wife to determine how much to tip. Allowing a woman to dabble in financial matters? Unthinkable!

So, now that we've gone around that little circle and determined that these matters now apply equally to both sexes, I'm back right where I was in my previous post.


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## Apatheticviews (Mar 21, 2010)

Starch said:


> The above relates to the US, as that's where the OP (like me) is. Nobody in the US has aspired to the army, the civil service or colonial service since the 19th Century.


Um...

Completely untrue.

We have a an All Volunteer Military service, and have for years. The competition for the service academies is stiff (each elected representative at national level is allowed to have 5 appointees in each academy at one time), and the the services base requirements for enlisted and officer service are nothing to smirk at either.

Quite a few aspire to civil service as well, as can be seen through politicians, and any number of government workers, including both Police & Firemen.

As for Colonial Service, we just call it something else. Although the US doesn't maintain colonies, we do have many other programs including the Peace Corps, which would be the rough equivalent.

With 300 million people in the USA, saying nobody aspires to these three services is a huge overstatement. But at any given time, we have at least a million people filling these roles.


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## Cruiser (Jul 21, 2006)

Apatheticviews said:


> With 300 million people in the USA, saying nobody aspires to these three services is a huge overstatement. But at any given time, we have at least a million people filling these roles.


Actually the number is much larger. The U.S. Government employs nearly 2 million people, and that doesn't include the military services or the post office. There are 1.4 million people on active duty in the military with another 1.4 million serving part-time in the Reserves and National Guard. If the post office is included we are talking about almost a million more people.

That puts the number at over 5 million and we haven't even begun factoring in all of the people who work for State and local governments, presently estimated to be about 8.3 million people; and this number doesn't include school teachers.

There are approximately 4.5 million elementary and high school teachers in the U.S.. Throw in post-secondary teachers and professors and we are talking about another 1.7 million people.

If we add in the Peace Corps and the other public service jobs like The Salvation Army, American Red Cross, etc.., we have well over 20 million people employed in civil, military, and public service in the United States.

Cruiser


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## DavidLeoThomas (Jan 18, 2010)

Starch said:


> Speaking of details, here's a telling one: note that it's _Emily_ Post's Etiquette, not Edward's; similarly, it's _Amy_ Vanderbilt's book, not Al's, and nobody writes to Abner Van Buren or Andrew Landers.


Actually, these days it's Peggy Post and Peter Post, backed by the Emily Post Institute. Much of the advice in Etiquette is gender neutral (and I highly recommend owning a copy, if not reading it straight through), but if you really feel you need something that reaffirms your masculinity, there is Essential Manners for Men, which has the additional benefits of being shorter and more conversational.


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## Centaur (Feb 2, 2010)

JJR512 said:


> Are there any schools or other places in America now where a man can learn the finer points of etiquette, protocol, social graces, etc., if for some reason these things were not learned growing up?


Charleston, so I understand.


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

On the military thing:

"Nobody" is obviously an example of hyperbole. If you don't know what that means, look it up. Sometimes people use figurative speech. Another word to look up might be "aspire." Wal-Mart has about 2 million employees; McDonald's half a million or so. How many people do you think "aspire" to work at Wal-Mart or McDonald's? Also, please try to consider context, which is relatively easy as the post that inspired the observation is readily readable right on this page:



> Young gentlemen from the type of family whose daughters attended finishing school would normally aspire to university, the army, the civil service, diplomatic corps or colonial service, or perhaps the church, having first attended public school.


Certainly, some number of people do aspire to attend the service academies: the number is relatively small, but not _literally_ nobody. As noted, the free education, rather than a desire to be in the military, is a significant factor. If it weren't, they wouldn't _need_ to have a minimum service requirement. As it is, a fairly large number of academy graduates leave the military promptly after completing the minimum commitment, despite the fact they have manifestly better prospects in the service than non-academy graduates. Also, the applicant pool is relatively thin with people whose sisters attended anything akin to finishing school. And the percentage from independent private high schools (American-ese translation of the the previous posters reference to "public schools") is small: about 90% are from public high schools, and presumably a good portion of the remainder are from Catholic high schools.

If you want to go off topic and talk about the military generally, rather than the officer corps, in recent years they've responded to missing recruiting numbers by dropping entry requirements. A significant percentage of those who wind up enlisted don't even meet the lowered standards, and require waivers - a goodly number because they have criminal records.


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

DavidLeoThomas said:


> Actually, these days it's ....


I don't think you understood my post. At all.

Remember, the underlying subject is women's finishing schools, not Emily Post, and certainly not the current edition of Emily Post. Here's the original question, with some emphasis added:



> *Back in the times when* it was common for young ladies to attend finishing schools, where did young gentlemen learn the manly versions of what was taught there?


Among other things to note (as impled by the question) "these days" there's scarcely such a thing as a women's finishing school any more, at least in the US. The colleges that used to fit that mold are either gone or co-ed, and the ChapinSpenceBrearlyNightingaleBamfordHewitt socio-educational complex is nowadays more obsessed with how to get into Harvard than how to organize a tea party.

The high-end social milieu that finishing schools trained the appropriate candidates for no longer really exists; when it did, it was established and maintained by women, and men participated in it by following their wives' instructions.

On the somewhat different question of where one might learn the modern-day version of etiquette and the like, there are people who teach classes, though they're more often for children, I think. In the adolescent age-range, do they still have dance classes any more? I'm talking about those deals that existed when I was an adolescent: it was a once-a-week co-ed evening thing that ran through most of the school year; one needed an invite (which came via one's mother) to enroll; one dressed up in a coat and tie (or appropriate party dress, for the distaff) and learned how to do dances no one does, have politely stilted conversations and serve punch with a dipper.


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

Starch said:


> I don't think you understood my post. At all.
> 
> Remember, the underlying subject is women's finishing schools, not Emily Post, and certainly not the current edition of Emily Post. Here's the original question, with some emphasis added:


The underlying subject is not women's finishing schools, it's what's taught at them. The body of knowledge being taught at them is what I'm referring to when I ask, "Where did young gentlemen learn the manly versions of what was being taught there?"

As far as Emily post and the current edition of the book that bears her name are concerned, it was I who first mentioned that book, and although I did not explicitly say so, it was the current edition to which I was referring. Now, you made a good point when you showed how that book, and similar ones like it, and similar advice columns, etc., were _originally_ written or prepared by women; however, since I originally brought that book up in the first place, and since I'm also the one who wondered if there are modern schools that teach the same kinds of topics that the book is about, I hardly think you can say that the current edition is _certainly_ not what we're talking about here.


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

Well, I can say it wasn't the _original_ question which - correctly, I think - assumed that the there was a time when women learned _something_ in finishing schools and men didn't. Implicit in the notion that "there was a time" is the fact that nowadays _nobody_, of any gender, learns anything in finishing school.

Apparently, you're now asking a new question:



> The underlying subject is not women's finishing schools, it's what's taught at them. The body of knowledge being taught at them is what I'm referring to when I ask, "Where did young gentlemen learn the manly versions of what was being taught there?"


_What's taught at women's finishing schools_ - Nothing. They (with rare exceptions) don't exist any more. There is no body of knowledge "being" taught at finishing schools any more. The level of etiquette, and the role in the world, that finishing schools prepared one for no longer exists. Also, as previously noted, teaching etiquette certainly was never the _only_ purpose of finishing schools.

I suspect nowadays most people learn what's in the current edition of Emily Post by reading it. As noted, there are people in existence who undertake to teach classes that cover the same subject, but I don't think very many people take them.

https://www.magnificentmanners.com/
https://www.etiquettemoms.com/
https://www.etiquettelessons.com/


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

I am having a difficult time deciding if you truly are not understand what it is I'm saying, or if you're being deliberately obtuse.

What you quoted me asking as a "new question" is, in fact, a word-for-word quote snipped from my original post, the one that started this thread. It's not a new question that I am "now" asking, it's the original question. Now, I may have mis-tensed my lead-up to my quote of my original question by saying, "what [is] taught..." and, "being taught at them," but the quote itself is clearly in the past tense. I'm sorry if that confused you. Now, I'm sure they're pretty rare in modern times, as you yourself point out, but in light of the fact that they do still exist, it seems silly to say that they aren't teaching anything anymore.

I'm also quite sure that you are correct that etiquette wasn't the only thing taught at finishing schools. That's why I've referred to things other than etiquette.

Finally, I already noted that I could probably learn a lot by simply reading straight through _Emily Post's Etiquette_, but that I would prefer not to. As I noted when I mentioned that previously, I learn better in "instructor-led structured learning situations". (See Post #13.)


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

If you want to know about the history of finishing schools and what was taught in them, that's a historical question. That seemed to be what you were asking in the original post, since it begins with "Back in the times when ...." If you care about that (which you apparently don't), you can read post #5 again or the penultimate paragraph of post #21.

If you want to know where you can go today, to have someone teach you today's version of etiquette, I posted a couple of links. You can probably find many more - including some that are probably more useful to you - by doing a Google search. Here it is:

https://www.google.com/search?q=etiquette+class

Such finishing schools as still exist today are, so far as I can tell, teaching nothing of much use.


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

JJR512 said:


> Back in the times when it was common for young ladies to attend finishing schools, *where did young gentlemen learn the manly versions of what was taught there?*


I emphasized the actual question, to call attention to it _yet again_. I'm sorry, but I still don't see how this can make it seem that I want to know about the history of finishing schools. Granted, the history of finishing schools is a related topic, and certainly a knowledge of what was taught at them is needed in order to answer the actual question being posed. I'm not disinterested in learning these things, it's just that I don't understand how the question I actually asked can make you think that this was the main thing I wanted to learn. I'm I'm wrong, if _everybody_ assumed that what I really wanted to learn about was the history of finishing schools when I was in fact asking about something completely different, then I'll just have to chalk this entire experience up as another fault of my concrete thinking (the way I think that asking a question should lead to an answer that answers the question that was asked, and not some other question altogether) interfering with my ability to communicate effectively with the rest of the world.

But thanks for the links, and the other useful information you contributed. I'll be taking a look at the links shortly.


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## Starch (Jun 28, 2010)

Okay, with the caveat that this is all a matter of hair splitting:

The confusion about the question (and the source of its apparent changeability) is the distinction between (a) historical topics (_i.e._ things that existed in the past and don't any more) and (b) current events (_e.g._ where one might, today, learn what the current standards of etiquette are). That's the distinction that I'm trying to clarify, not the distinction between finishing schools and MIT.



JJR512 said:


> certainly a knowledge of what was taught at them is needed in order to answer the actual question being posed


Yep.

Post #5, I think, answers exactly what the original (historical) question was, in a slightly jokey - though not inaccurate - manner. One key point, which may be too subtle in my earlier posts: the elaborate etiquette rules and refined social skills women learned in finishing school in "those days" were rules that don't apply, and skills that don't exist, any more.

Other posts address the current events question.


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## DCLawyer68 (Jun 1, 2009)

JJR512 said:


> Back in the times when it was common for young ladies to attend finishing schools, where did young gentlemen learn the manly versions of what was taught there?


School...remember that young ladies didn't actually pursue education past a fairly elementary level. Boys went on to what we'd call "prep schools" such as Eton or Harrow, where playing rugby, etc. "toughened them up." Ladies would instead learn about manners and where the forks went.


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Isn't life itself a finishing school of sorts? In a threat titled "Dressing like an Astronaut", in the Fashion Forum (I think), a poster mentioned that our astronaut candidates were generally junior officers with little experience in the social graces and that the only finishing school training provided, was provided by the USAF to candidates from all of the (four) military services. Years ago, while serving as a USAF ROTC Instructor at Mississippi State University, one of our responsibilities was to regularly host cadets in our home during evenings and on weekends, so that they might see how a young officer and his family lived. Thank gawd my wife knew how to properly set a table and I could fairly competently carry on conversations regarding sports, politics and/or the military arts...together, we had all the bases covered. 

My point is, by the time we reach a certain age/level of maturity, we all (or at least the vast majority) have learned how to conduct ourselves in dealing with others. The real rub is how effectively we elect to apply that knowledge!


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## VictorRomeo (Sep 11, 2009)

DCLawyer68 said:


> School...remember that young ladies didn't actually pursue education past a fairly elementary level. Boys went on to what we'd call "prep schools" such as Eton or Harrow, where playing rugby, etc. "toughened them up." Ladies would instead learn about manners and where the forks went.


Not so this side of the pond. Preparatory school was and still is a private primary school designed to prepare a 13 year old for the jump to secondary education.

Oh, and to answer the op's question. There was no alternative for the young gentleman. He learnt all he needed to know from his father, in college and in university. You see you must first really understand why the finishing school existed. In essence it was to provide a young lady with the correct set of cultural and social skills in order to _marry well_. Not something a young wealthy gentleman needed to worry about.

It's worth noting that a lot of the more famous finishing schools have closed over the past 20 years or so.


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## JJR512 (May 18, 2010)

I really need to get my eyes checked and get new contacts. When I first read the preceding post, I read, "_Predatory_ school was and still is a private primary school designed to prepare a 13 year old for the jump to secondary education." That little mis-read gave the sentence a _very_ different meaning.


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