in their habits than those coming in former years. Even children now know too much to be caught by the cheap fallacies of tipplers. Take one instance from many. A millionaire brewer, a senator in another State, said to Mrs. Hunt, "I shall vote for your bill. I have sold ont my brewery and am clean from the whole business. Let me tell you what occurred at my table. A guest was taken dangerously ill at dinner-insensible-and there was a call for brandy to restore him. My little boy at once exclaimed, 'No, that is just what he don't need. It will paralyze the nerves and muscles of the blood vessels so they will not send back the blood to the heart.' When the liquor was poured out to give the man, the lad insisted on pushing it back. You will kill him; he has too much blood in his head already."" "How did you know all that?" his father afterwards asked. "Why, it is in my physiology at school." It seems the text-books, prepared by such men as Prof. H. Newell Martin, F. R. S., of Johns Hopkins University, had succeeded in giving the lad some definite information which was proving useful. "Senator," said Mrs. Hunt, "are you sorry your boy learned that at school?" "Madam," the man replied, raising his hand, "I would not take $5,000 for the assurance this gives me that my boy will never be a drunkard." Information not a strong factor in controlling conduct? This kind of information is proving so strong a factor that the liquor dealers are alarmed and are combining in efforts to stop our schools from thus injuring their trade-an injury of which English owners of American brewery stock are complaining; and there are certain punctilious doctrinaires in science who appear more strenuous to preserve a certain theoretical precision in the order of succession of topics in the processes of instruction who seem more solicitous to spare the feelings and protect the self-indulgent tippling habits of the luxurious classes than to save the youth of the country from ruin by drink, who are combining with the brewers in endeavors, in different States just now, to repeal or embarrass and neutralize the enforcement of the temperance instruction laws. The agents of the brewers in various States are repeating over and over these same hostile arguments which were heard here at the meeting on Saturday last, alleging the inefficacy of such instruction, as if they desired its efficacy, and claiming that it is impossible for the young before they reach college-or certainly previous to entering the high school-to attain any scientific knowledge on these subjects, a rule which would deny to 95 per cent of our school children, who never reach the high school, all definite scientific instruction on these topics, limiting them to occasional moral exhortations by their teachers. It is contended that it is out of the due order to touch on these subjects until a pupil has thoroughly mastered the science of chemistry and the philosophy of nutrition. What if it is? What valuable interests will suffer if, on account of a great and appalling moral exigency, these all-important practical themes are taken up in advance, since they must be taken up then in 95 per cent of the cases, if attended to at all? At any rate, the people of this country, the parents of our school children, have decided that they shall be thus taken up, because they are determined to use every possible endeavor to protect their children from the awful dangers of intoxicating drinks. And how utterly wrongheaded, and cold-hearted, too, it is for teachers, who are the servants of the people, or for anyone else, to interfere with this great philanthropic movement, which has cost untold sacrifices of time and toil to establish, and on which the future welfare of the nation largely depends! Doubtless the bulk of our school teachers are not yet equal to our most learned physicians in their physiological attainments, but to despise, therefore, and to decry as unsound, misleading, and morally worthless such instruction as they are able to give on these subjects, is to show recklessness in regard to facts, and indifference in regard to the evils which correct teaching is calculated to prevent, for those evils are so dire and threatening that all wise minds must resolve to use, instantly and incessantly, such preventive means as we have, rather than to postpone all effort to that indefinite future when means sufficiently perfect to satisfy these extremists shall be provided. Meanwhile it is encouraging to know that the trustees of the new American University at Washington have already taken measures, in response to the request of friends of this instruction, to establish there a College of Scientific Temperance, not as a propaganda, but for original research, and for the training of the "teachers of teachers" on these themes, which the perils of national life in Europe and America are pressing to the front. The unworthy methods which nearly every where mark the opposition to this temperance instruction deserve strong rebuke. Have the distinguished authors of the temperance text-books-some of them known and honored as scientific authorities on two hemispheres-told lies in their books? If so, why does not someone point out the lies? If not, then reputable men should have done with the continual and contemptible insinuation that our children are learning in school what they will have to unlearn in life. The misrepresentations made in the progress of the recent great contest in New York have been shameful, but all in vain, for by overwhelming majorities last week the house and senate passed the improved law, demanded by the representatives of over 1,000,000 members of churches and other philanthropic bodies in the State. Certainly the victories which are continually attending this hard-pressed conflict are so remarkable as to warrant a reverent conviction that the especial favor of Providence is attending a movement which, in its inception and prosecution, has been largely imbued with a spirit of prayer, which is purely philanthropic, which is accordant with true wisdom and scientific truth, and which, in its wide extent and confessed potency for good, is by far the most promising of all present measures for the prevention of vice. TEMPERANCE EDUCATION MAP OF THE UNITED STATES AND TERRITORIES. [Furnished to the Bureau by the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction of the W. C. T. U., Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, superintendent. Utah was under the national temperance law until it became a State; since then no advice has been received regarding the enactment of a temperance education law.] States in white have a temperance education law. Those in black have none. The cross signifies that scientific temperance is a mandatory study in public schools. *The star signifies that this is a mandatory study, and that a penalty is attached to the enforcing clause of this statute in the State or Territory to which it is affixed. The dagger signifies that the study is not only mandatory, but is required of all pupils in all schools. The double dagger signifies that the study is required of all pupils in all schools, and is to be pursued with text-books in the hands of pupils able to read. The parallel indicates that the study is to be taught in the same manner and as thoroughly as other required branches. The section mark indicates that text-books on this topic used in primary and intermediate schools must give one-fourth or one-fifth their space to temperance matter, and those used in high schools not less than twenty pages. The paragraph indicates that no teacher who has not passed a satisfactory examination in this subject is granted a certificate or authorized to teach. - Three lines indicate that text-books on this topic shall give full and adequate space to the temperance matter. ED 9558* |