Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-04-03
6bt farfaster 1ntelliscnfer.
LANCASTER. APRIL 3, 1885.
Teaching Hygiene.

Ab Itu1loy ouo iO6ASlutulNs w " WY L
decided vote, in answer to many petitions
and amid the most marked demonstrations
Of enthusiasm from the temperance ladies
who fllled the galleries, has passed the ply
siolorical- hygiene alcoholic school bill
xhich, as we understand it, is a law requir-
ing that every pupil in all the common
schools Of the state shall be taught physi-
ology and hygiene, especially with regard
to the effect of alcohol upon the human
stomach. This topic is to be placed among
the fundamental branches-heretofore
limited to such as reading, writing, arith- |
metic, geography, grammar and United |
States history--which constitute the mini |
mum Of the common school curriculum and
which every board of school directors is ex-
pected to enforce within its jurisdiction.
The law is in operation in New York,
Massachusetts, and some half-dozen other
states. II is little too early to fully test
the practicability Or the efficacy of such a
novel regulation. The governor of Penn
syivania may or may not add his approval
to the bin should he do so it will be, we
suspect, more in Difference to the apparent
popular demand for it and to the wisdom of
the bodies which have enacted it, than to
any high respect for the bill itself, or any
great faith in what it proposes to do. 1t
has passed the legislature by a vote that
would indicate the possibility of its passage
even over the executive veto.
Assuming that it will be placed upon the
statute books, we await it's operation with
some curiosity. The public will take some
istxtboots WAN examining the hfeeacI physiology
and hygiene, with special reference to the
effect Of alcohol on the human stomach.
1t will be curious to see local school boards
shaping the curriculum so as to confer the
benefits of the new study on all the pupils
from the little toddler in his pinafore alb
abs to the young man sprouting NOUS
tache. The variety of charts of human
stomachs and of maps illustrative
of the ravages upon them by alec.
hol, that are to adorn the walls
of the school rooms in the future will be
more picturesque than the average patent
medicine almanac. Then there will be a
contention in the school boards as to what
the effects of alcohol are and as to what
percentage Of alcohol certain drinks con.
tain and we can imagine the partisan
friends of vinous, spirituous and malt
liquors contending in some districts each
for the control Of the school board, so as to
impress upon the curriculum the doctrine
of ftheirparticular favorite beverage and, at
other places, where the theory may prevail
with the majority of voters, that celebrated
English doctor has put forth, that nothing
is better for ones digestion with ones din.
ner than quart of claret, it may happen
the school teacher will be compelled to in
struct his pupils that little wine for the
stomach's sake is good thing. In Wash.
ington and Mercer and other counties
where strong anti-liquor sentiment pre-.
walls there will doubtless be introduced a
text book, which will teach that all liquors
are alcoholic and all alcohol is hurtful to
the stomach. In Berks and Lehigh the
directors will doubtless be best salts.
Hed with book showing that beer
contains just the proper amount OF
alcohol to benefit the stomach, il
moderately taken ; while in Fayette and
Westmorsland we shouldn't be surprised
to have 1t set out in the adopted primers
Of hygiene that in the memorable quarrel
between John l.. Dawson and James
Buchanan, as to the relative merits OF
Monongahela and Lancaster county
whisky, Dawson was eternally right and
Buchanan eternally wrong, and that nc
whisky made out there has enough alcohol
in it to injure the human stomach that
takes enough of it.
Then again, there are some school
boards--indeed good many of them
which may find the cheapest and most for
chile text book on the new subject of en-.
forced instruction in some +" frightful ex
ample selected from their own number
and an occasional visit on his part to the
various school rooms may answer the pur
poses of the law if it does not strictly com
ply with the letter. Come to think of it
however, where is the school district il
which there is not ever present some sucI
example of the effect of alcohol, not only
on the human stomach, but ON the face and
form divine, on the human brain and soul
And II youny men heed not the warning
and the strong fall by the wayside, and
II most of the legislators who make
the law ignore its instruction, think
you the country is to be saved though
Moses and the prophets and one risen from
the dead speak to school children through
hygiene textbooks and physiological charts
and maps of inhamed stomachs and direful
pictures of woeful illsY
Strange Experience.
The Philadelphia councilmen have had a