SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE INSTRUCTION IN PUBLIC

SCHOOLS.

BY REV. ALBERT F. NEWTON.

NTELLIGENCE is the basis of permanent moral reform.

IN

That reform is needed in the use of alcoholic beverages no intelligent person will deny. The evils arising from drunkenness are too appalling and too frequent to allow of dispute concerning the imperative necessity of a permanent change for the better.

Normal appetites are to be directed, abnormal ones are to be avoided. Inherited appetites are to be conquered by changes that work through several generations. These principles are at the foundation of the scientific temperance instruction.

The action of alcohol on the human system has been studied by the most careful physicians and scientists in Europe and America, and these leaders of thought have given us the results of their investigations. About twelve years ago the work of introducing temperance instruction into the public schools began. At that time there was not a text-book on the subject in the world. But Mrs. Mary H. Hunt of Boston undertook the seemingly impossible task of securing laws providing for teaching on the subject in public schools, and also the larger work of securing suitable graded text-books.

All the states and territories of the Union except Arkansas, Georgia, and Virginia have since enacted mandatory temperance laws. These three states are already contemplating securing such laws. More than 16,000,000 children are now being taught the nature and effects of alcohol and other narcotics on the human system.

There are four essential requirements for the faithful execution of the law, viz. : (1) The nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics must be taught in connection with

physiology and hygiene. (2) There must be a definite time and place in the regular course of study for this branch. (3) Pupils able to read and use text-books in other branches must have suitable, well-graded text-books to help them in this study. (4) Teachers must be trained to teach this study just as they are other branches, and a penalty must impend if these provisions are not carried out. The affixing of a penalty for nonexecution of the law is a cardinal principle in all effective jurisprudence. A law without a penalty is merely advice. (Blackstone.)

In 1887 the people of the state of New York enacted a law in relation to health and decency. This law had this penalty: "A failure to comply with the provisions of this act on the part of the trustees shall be sufficient grounds for the removal from office, and for the withholding from the district any share of the public moneys of the state." This shows how important a penalty is to make a law effective. No reasonable person can consistently object to a penalty. "Rulers are not a terror to the good work but to the evil." The law-abiding citizen will favor the penalty which hangs over the law-breaker.

While fifteen years ago there was not one text-book on this subject, to-day there are between twenty-five and thirty wellgraded text-books for all the grades from the primary to the high school. They are published by seven great publishing houses in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. The authors are such eminent educators as H. Newell Martin, D.Sc., F.R.S., professor of biology in the Johns Hopkins University; Charles H. Stowell, M.D., late professor of histology and microscopy, and assistant professor of physiology, University of Michigan; Roger S. Tracy, M.D., register of records of the New York City Health Department; Orestes M. Brands, superintendent of schools, Paterson, N. J., and other equally eminent scholars and educators, at home and abroad.

These text-books have been examined by experienced educators, and they have been declared to be as good as any set of books issued on any subject taught in the public schools. Some narrow minds have cried out that the friends of this reform were

actuated by mercenary motives, but it has been published repeatedly that not one cent has ever been asked or received by Mrs. Mary H. Hunt or the eminent gentlemen who constitute her advisory board for indorsing any text-book on this subject. Doubtless some said that Jesus was working for some firm that published Bibles when he said, "Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life." Some people never can understand how any one can do a great work for the sake of humanity without some selfish motive.

At Albany last winter Rev. Albert H. Plum, D.D., of Boston, who has been familiar with this work from its beginning, in referring to the hint that this was a "book job," said, "Any intimation or insinuation of this nature is untrue in every particular." The absurdity of the "book job" charge is seen when we remember that temperance physiology laws have been enacted by the national Congress, by the legislatures of fortyone states, and the text-books have been translated into the language of six countries of Europe and Asia where they are in school use. Has all the world gone into a "book job"? No sane person will believe that. It is important to remember that the text-books that come up to the standard adopted by eminent educators in 1887 and which the New York law requires, give one fourth of their space to temperance and three fourths to physiology and hygiene. The subject of the action of alcohol on the human system is considered in connection with the study of the bones, muscles, and nerves. The digestive, nervous, and circulatory systems are studied in connection with the effect on them of alcohol and all other narcotics. The child is not only taught to care for the body in a suitable manner, but is taught the reasons why he ought to do all he can to have a sound mind in a sound body. In 1884 a temperance school law was enacted in the state of New York, but as there was no penalty, it was evaded. This year amendments were passed unanimously by both branches of the legislature and when the bill came to Governor Morton's hand he not only signed it but he also issued a memorandum which is both an interpretation of the law and an answer to objections urged against it. His excellency said:

There is one feature of the law which does not seem to have been referred to in the discussion concerning its provisions, namely the requirement that instruction in the subject indicated be given "in all schools connected with reformatory institutions." There does not seem to be any provision of the law requiring instruction in this subject in these institutions, and it appears from information received in response to inquiries made at the office of the State Board of Charities that no instruction upon this subject is given in any of these institutions, except the Elmira Reformatory. If this instruction is important or desirable for the pupils in our common schools, it must be equally as important for the inmates of industrial schools and the various institutions for the care of juvenile delinquents.

He

The child is taught what are foods and what are poisons. is taught the dangers which arise from bad air, bad food, and bad drinks. The principle is to give the children the warning knowledge they need and then let them decide on their action. "Goody-goody" talks are not what they need. They ought to know the truths that science can give. The graded text-books give them this knowledge in a form adapted to their capacity.

The importance of giving this instruction to the lower grades is emphasized when we remember that sixty per cent of the scholars never go beyond the primary grade. Only five per cent enter the high schools. Hence the wisdom of the provision requiring this study to be taught "all pupils in all schools."

Good citizenship requires that our children shall be taught the disastrous results of intemperance. Intelligent sobriety is indispensable in a republican form of government. The highest standard of civic virtue can never be reached by an intemperate people. We must enlist the conscience, the intelligence, and patriotism of the friends of the public schools in this work if we will have a country free from corruption and debauchery.

The liquor saloon contributes more to the "pollution" of politics than all other corrupting influences combined. When we introduce the teaching of temperance into our schools, we are teaching good civics and fitting the children to become good citizens. It is the duty of all friends of good citizenship to make it their business to help the teaching of scientific temperance in the public schools of the entire nation.

ALBERT F. NEWTON.

THE LAW OF DEMAND IN WORK.

BY WILLIAM B. CHISHOLM.

IN considering the crying needs of the unemployed perhaps it

would be better to study first the law of demand, believing that the law of supply can take care of itself. After all that has been said and sometimes sung of the heartlessness of the age, we are confronted at last with the sober, half-sad fact that man is the architect of his own fortune and that no amount of remedial provision can put energy into lazy, or foresight into shiftless, natures, and that political economy with all its development is powerless to help those who are constitutionally unfitted to help themselves.

It is not entirely popular in these days to advocate the claims of capital against labor, and it is a very thankless task to encounter opprobrium in behalf of those whom a superabundance of wealth may have hardened so that they would scorn even their apologists. But it is true kindness to the young-to those who are starting out in life and who have the world, as the saying goes, before them-that they should be made to realize that there is no conspiracy of fortune against them and that in the world of business effort men purchase labor just as they purchase a pound of tea or a gallon of milk. They do not purchase it in a heartless so much as in a soulless way, if I may make so fine a distinction. They purchase it simply because they need it, and the man or woman whose labor is thus purchased as a chattel becomes in turn an employer of others every time he steps into a store and orders a bill of groceries-for that matter every time he steps upon a railway car.

The outcry of labor against capital has been based in the past rather upon the idea of the humanity involved than upon the economic consideration of labor as a neutral factor. It is the blood and bone that suffers in crowded tenements and unhealthy,