A handbook on manners for children

On Civility in Children is a handbook of conduct written by Erasmus of Rotterdam and published in 1530. It is considered the first treatise in Western Europe on the moral and practical education of children. Erasmus addressed it to the eleven-year-old Henry of Burgundy, son of Adolph, Prince of Veere, and wrote it in simple Latin.

The book gives instructions on how a boy should conduct himself in the company of adults. It is divided into seventeen sections, each dealing with a different aspect of behaviour.

It achieved immediate success and was translated into many languages. The first English version, by Robert Whittinton, appeared in 1532 under the title A Little Book of Good Manners for Children, and Thomas Paynell issued another translation in 1560. Norbert Elias discusses it in The Civilizing Process as a landmark in the intellectual history of civility as a cultural concept in the West. It was reprinted so often that a French typeface used to print it in the sixteenth century became known as civilité, and it was used for books of manners in Erasmus's style until the nineteenth century.