Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-04-25
0bf fa,,faster 1ntelligenfer.
LANCASTER. APRIL Is. 1885.
0SaYIng the Chlldren.H

The West Chester Republicdn bids us help
Il and the Women's Christian Temperance
Union save the youth of the state and
Il classes all who do not believe in the new
hyRiene-alcohol school law ae peing "op-
posed to this righteous worA of saving the
children Of the commonwealth.' With
tho intemperance ana inaccuracy Oh its
class. It de6es us to deny that the use and !
/. abuse sr intoxicating liquors causes more
4 -.l4ery and crime than any other known
human agency" it challenges us to name
/" most of the best educators of the state"
Z who agree with the INTELLIGENCER in its
view of this new law, and dolefully winds
up with the regret that the INTELLI-
GENCER stands :" as stumbling block in
the pathway of great REFORM
This would he mournful if true. But it
Is not.
There is no reliable evidence, to begin
with, that the use and abuse of intoxicat-
ing liquors " cause more misery and crime
than any other known human agency" 1t
is q high-sounding statement frequently
made, like the statistics which go to prove
that illiteracy is the mother of all crime,
and education the preventive of it. They
are merely assertions they have never yet
been proved. Intemperance is great
evil its ravages are fearful. Illiteracy is a
great shortcoming it needs to be provided
for. But neither the cause of temperance
nor of education gains from gross over
statements and the radicals who indulge
in them prove their own weakness and
furnish the opposition with an effective
weapon.
But if the use and abuse of intoxicating
liquors and narcotics did all the harm that
IS claimed, we do not believe the youth Of
the country are to be saved from thenfsss,
the scientific instruction Of all the scholars
in all the schools upon these subjects; any
more than we believe better observance
of the seventh commandment would be Sc
cured by scientific instruction upon chastit.
in all the schools. Temperance is one o
the virtues, of which there are many; AM
the youth of the country who are not save
by the examples of vice, and the terribl
lessons which it teaches on every hand, an
who are not purified in the sanctuary of tn
home, are not to be saved by " "scientifi
instruction" The men who best know th
scientific effects of alcohol and narcotic
upon the human system are not the men VIII
most abstain from them; and the mos
temperate and abstemious are not made S
by scientific instruction or knowledge A
Superintendent Higbee said in his last al
nnal IL, ort, q knowledge Of sin in all i
worst consequences is something quite di
tinct from the presence and power of vi
tue in the soul. So much depends upon Il
teacher, and so little upon the text;
much depends upon his personal presene
with character already well formed, who
habits of moral self-restraint are conti
ual lesson read and understood by process
of the soul Ear deeper than any attacks
Intellectual apprehension, and so little upC
outward rules and schemes of casuistry
somuch upon the inspiration of the goo
as this touches the child's heart throue
hourly association with good man or n
BILE woman, as teachers, and so little upt
cold abstract maxims into which no war;
ing breath of life has yet been breathet
30 much depends upon the one, and so litt
upon the other, in all matters of IN oral d
clpllne, tnaC we uuSU hob pc loo Sdngul
about the result which such legislation
likely to produce"
We have made no census of the educ
tors of the state but we have yet to he
any demand from them for such legislati
" as that under consideration. We do knc
that every one whom we have ever hea
discuss the bill deprecated its sweepil
provisions, and predicted its utter impra
ticability. Does the Republican know
any board of directors, in any district,
any teacher prepared to carry out Ia
which compels scientific instruction
alcohol and narcotics even before t
scholar is prepared for reading, writing al
arithmetic, and when the teacher has d
cretion to withhold instruction even
these branches ? We are quite content
let experience demonstrate the futility a
impracticability of this measure to ia
g the safe appeal to truth and time"
How to Protect the Trees.
Apropos Of Arbor Day and tree plantir