Studying the Temperance Instructor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 9, 1916

Studying the Temperance Instructor

the Red Sea, and closed them again over the pursuing enemies of Israel.

There are many mothers who, when reminded of the instruction and training that their children should receive at their hands, excuse themselves by saying that they have not the books and charts and other facilities needed. But, “What is that in thine hand?” Are you improving to the utmost the instruction already in your home in the books and in the papers that come to it week by week?

Every year a great deal of time and thought and effort and money is expended in the preparation of the Temperance Instructor. Presumably, every Seventh-day Adventist family receives one copy or more of this paper, and most of the members read at least a part of it. But how many mothers really study this great temperance document, and take thought and time to emphasize and illustrate the truths it presents? Quite recently the editor of the Instructor conducted a ten-minute temperance quiz in her Sabbath school division, made up of forty wide-awake church school boys and girls, from twelve to fourteen years of age. Arguments for and against prohibition were called for; and such questions as, “What is a ‘blind tiger’?” “Does prohibition ‘hurt business’?” “Why does prohibition lower the tax rate?” “Does prohibition prohibit?” “What happens to a town when it really goes ‘dry’?” were asked. To her surprise, she found that many of these boys and girls, supplied with the Temperance Instructor each year since they first began to read for themselves, had very hazy ideas indeed on these subjects, and were unable to present anything like a clear-cut, definite answer to the questions asked. Of course there were exceptions; there always are. Either these exceptional children read more attentively and have better memories, or they are more carefully taught at home, than the others. But shall we allow our boys and girls to drift into the perilous years of adolescence with the hazy-minded majority? Shall we not rather use every means in our power to fortify them against the temptations and dangers that the curse of intoxicating drink may bring to them in one form or another, girls as well as boys?

“But what can we do? We supply the papers—isn’t that enough?” may be asked.