Our Schools and Temperance.
THE public schools should be the great center of temperance teaching; but it is a disappointing matter of fact that not fifty per cent. of the pupils receive anything but the most general and indifferent sort of instruction, and that is given in such a weak and compromising way as to be of little benefit. In the graduating class in one of our best grammar schools I recently found that thirty per cent. of the pupils believe that the moderate use of alcohol is beneficial, and of this number the girls were in the majority. This state of affairs arises from two great causes. First, the timidity of teachers; and, second, the lack of proper, well-arranged matter and clear ideas as to what to teach. The timidity of teachers is well grounded in many cases, owing to the presence in schools of children from the families of influential rumsellers; but the lack of proper matter is really the seat of the whole difficulty, for if the subject is presented in a proper manner, no opposition may reasonably be looked for. No rumseller wishes his child to become a drunkard, and it is only when the teaching has a political influence, or tends to destroy the child's respect for the parent, that opposition will arise. It is true, of course, that proper teaching must tend to these results, but this must be the product of the pupil's reflection, and not of open, harsh, and repeated attacks upon the rum traffic. I have often made inquiries among teachers as to the extent and nature of their temperance work, and I am forced to say that in many cases there is a needless lack of intelligence on the subject itself, while in others there exists a lack of judgment as to how to teach it. For the more advanced classes I would urge a careful, conscientious presentation of the subject from a scientific standpoint. Care should be taken to avoid all doubtful ground and statistics, and I would leave the character of the rumseller and license advocates to the tender mercy of an enlightened judgment. But I would teach what seems to me to be of vastly more importance, namely, the evil effect of moderate drinking upon the physical, intellectual, and moral nature of the individual. I would treat the subject as a part of the physiology and hygiene prescribed by the school committee. It is true that there has been some diversity of opinion in regard to the nature of alcohol, but I think we may now safely regard it as slow poison; and, starting with this statement, I would teach and demonstrate its evil effects upon longevity, power to perform difficult feats and careful work, power to endure heat and cold, ability to resist disease, effect upon digestion, circulation, adipose tissue, blood corpuscles, etc., also the effect upon the intellect and moral powers. It may be said that we are not in possession of the necessary books to make this teaching possible, except by the few teachers who have studied the subject carefully, and attended such lectures as those of Dr. Carpenter. This is true, and that is the one suggestion which I wish to present to the temperance workers. He who shall place in the hands of every teacher a well-arranged and practical work on the subject, prepared by some eminent authority, will do an inestimable good to the cause of temperance in our public schools. I would not be understood to ignore or underestimate the moral element in temperance, but I suggest this as one way, and one which may be used where others may not.—"A Teacher," in Congregationalist.