The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1885-03-07
TEMPERANCE INSTRUCTION.

The True Mission of the Public school
The Drink Habit Antagonistic to Every
Qualification for Good Citizenship.
Mary Allen West, President of the
Illinois w. C. r. T.. has issued, in
pamphlet form, an address on 1.-The
Mission of the Public School," from
which we extract the following:
What is public school? An institu-
ton founded by the State, supported by
public money, for the purpose of train
ing citizens for the State.
On no other ground can we Justify
the appropriation of public money to
public schools. Were the object of the
school simply to benefit the children in
dividually, without any reference to
their future duties as citizens, there
would be no more justice in taxing A
to school BIS children than in taxing
him to clOthe them.
What characterizes q good citizen?
Industry, truthfulness, prompt obedi-
ence to rightly constituted authority,
honesty, temperance-you know the
list, | need not recapitulate. These
our schools should teach as preparation
for citizenship.
What are the dangers threatening
good citizenship? Against these it is
plainly the mission of the public school
to guard the future citizen.
Prominent among these dangers is in
temperance, since it antagonizes not
one, but all the qualities the State most
desires in its citizens. If you doubt this
assertion, subject it to the test of these
qualities. Take industry for examples
The material interests of the State rest
upon ITS industries, and these in turn
rest upon the ability and willingness of
each individual citizen. All mechanical
skill depends upon the accuracy with
which the muscles of the worker obey
the dictates of his will, and how nearly
automatic this obedience becomes. The
only medium of communication be-
tween the human will and It's muscles
is nerve tissue. Nerve tissue is the first
point attacked by alcohol when it en-
tiers the human system, and the change
wrought in it is such as to impede the
transmission of the minds message to
its muscles. "Woe unto the nation
wherein each brain is not competent to
govern its own pair of hands. To
render the brain incompetent for this
work is Just what alcohol does. 1t
deadens the medulla oblongata which
presides over the correlation of muscular
action, thus making precision of action
impossible, as witness the staggering
gait and the aimless movements of the
drunken man.
Take this physiological fact INTO the
realm of the industries and YOU will
see how intoXicants antagonize the
well-being of the commonwealth, by
paralyzing its industries. Were every
man a drunkard, the world work must
stop; it is hindered just in proportion
to the number of drunken men in the
world. 1t is recognition of this fact
that leads railroad companies and many
other large organized industries to
make total abstinence obligatory upon
their employees. 1t is this which has
lately led Switzerland to pass restrictive
laws, so strict as to be almost pro-
hibitory of the sale of intoXicants.
Careful investigation convinced her that
the decrease of mechanical skill among
her people was directly traceable to
increase in their use of intoxicants.
Test the correctness of our PROPOSE
ton by reference to truthfulness the
moral foundation of the State, as in
dustry is its material cornerstone. DIR.
Benjamin Ward Richardson, Fellow of
the Royal College of Physicians, has
devoted twenty-five years to Investigate
ing the effects of drinking intoXicants.
At one time he enlisted three hundred
leading physicians of Great Britain in
these Investigations, each making care
full study of the results as seen in his
own locality and all meeting in London
once in six months to compare notes.
DIR. Richardson says that on one point
they all agreed; this was that the most
marked diagnostic characteristic of
dipsomania is that the drink-craver is
always a falsehood-teller, and nearly
all agreed that this tendency to false
hood descended to the children of the
dipsomaniac, so that the drink habits
of the people are undermining the
truthfulness of the Nation, This is the
most fearful danger which can threaten