Remember the good old days at McDonald's and other fast-food restaurants when, after getting served, customers ran the risk of drowning, not in a Big Mac's "Special Sauce," but in tubs of corporate-mandated saccharine, as we were almost always ordered to "Have a Nice Day"?

Sometimes these admonitions seemed genuinely heartfelt by the 17-year-olds behind the counter, and other times it was clear that they were uttered by rote. But even on those occasions when, by chance or adolescent lapse, customers were not thanked by HAND (has anyone ever noticed that this is the acronym for "Have a Nice Day"?), appreciation still managed to get conveyed. This was done by the employee expressing something along the lines of: "Thanks."

Oh, how I miss those days of grand courtesies!

It's important at this point to block out all visions of Andy Rooney, but have you noticed recently how customers, and not just in fast-food joints, are frequently the only ones saying "thank-you" when the bill gets paid? The routine often goes like this:

Employee: "That'll be $5.16."

Customer: "Thank-you."

Employee: "Yeah."

Personally, if I'm not thanked for a purchase and if I'm steamed enough, I've taken to saying "Your welcome" nonetheless. I'm still waiting for someone to manifest even a dime of comprehension at the sarcasm.

What gives? I've been thinking about writing a column for a while about the swallowing of so many "thank-yous," but I hadn't known where to go with it. What to say -- without sounding too curmudgeonly -- after framing the question as I just did? But then, this past Christmas season, I started playing connect the dots and several points fell into place about how kids learn, not just about right and wrong, but also about please and thank-you.

The first dot was my first-grade daughter's Christmas play at Annunciation School in South Minneapolis. I may be a relative novice when it comes to Catholic elementary schools, but the show was a revelation on several scores. Sure the kids sang and danced nicely. But I was particularly taken by their discipline; by the ability of several hundred children, representing nine grades (K-8), to master a complex production.

I wouldn't be so silly to suggest that Annunciation students monopolize the market on the kind of behavior which makes it possible for teachers to work successfully with children ranging in age from 5 to about 14. But I would contend there is something about the sense of order that one is most likely to find in a religiously animated school that leads to the kind of moral coherence and mutual respect -- to the kind of manners -- which helps make logistically challenging Christmas pageants possible.

The second dot has to do with a couple of commencement ceremonies for Washburn High School shown on cable television in recent years. Their contrast with the Annunciation program (as well as with three commencements I've attended at local Catholic high schools for my stepsons) can only be described as vast.

Whereas politeness and dignity marked the private school events, the Washburn ceremonies were scarred by seniors working overtime at being sophomoric. Yet even more telling than the graduates' noisy and disrespectful behavior itself was the fact that at least one grownup somewhere presumably thought it a fine idea to advertise these demoralizing performances on community television.

None of this is intended as either an across-the-board bow to private schools or a blanket shot at public schools. As I've said and written many times, I'm a grateful, and exclusive, product of the latter. But I have no hesitation in making the case that insofar as great numbers of children are growing up in turmoil at home and in their neighborhoods, that if they are to learn the rudiments of good manners, many must do so in school. And just as some schools, be they public or private, teach reading and math better than do others, some schools -- again be they public or private -- seem to invest more importance in teaching respect and decorum than do others.

By respect, by the way, I'm talking about the real kind in which all boys and girls are celebrated as children of God. Not politically correct, multicultural versions -- the kind that public schools are increasingly forced to pursue -- in which children are celebrated as emissaries of assorted, often battling, demographic groups.

In light, and at the risk of going out on a limb that I trust most public school educators would crave chopping off, I work from the assumption that a disproportionately small number of the young people who have a hard time saying "thank-you" have had the benefit of a faith-based elementary or secondary education.

One final point needs making. Many of the kids I've chastised are in their first jobs. And many surely are struggling to surmount problems that I could never have imagined when I was their age. I'm not without empathy when it comes to their situations, and the same clearly can be said of their employers.

But it begs the obvious to say that no favors are extended to anyone if all young employees, regardless of background, aren't held by their supervisors to the same high -- which is to say, really quite modest -- standards of workplace etiquette.

-- Mitchell B. Pearlstein is president of Center of the American Experiment, a conservative think tank in Minneapolis.