The freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1886-18??, 1888-01-18
Standards For Temperance
Textbooks.
ADOPTED By The National ". C. T. u

The following SYLLABUS OF maLber
and manner of teaching Scientific
Temperance in school textbooks
was adopted oy the late Annual
Convention of the National Wo-
mans Christian Temperance
Union, held in Nashville, Tennes-
see, November, 1887, as a standard
to which all such books must con-
form to receive the endorsement of
that Society.
If this new education, Scientific
Temperance, is to give to the world
a coming generation OF intelligent
total abstainers, as we expect, its
manuals of instruction must con-
form to the following specifications ::
1. They must teach, with no un-
certain sound, the proven findings
of science-viz:
(a) That alcohol lie dangerous
and seductive poison.
(b) That as beer, wine and cider
contain this same alcohol, therefore
they are dangerous drinks, to be
avoided, and that they ale the pro-
duct of fermentation that changes
food to poison.
(c) That it is the nature of any
liquor containing alcohol to create
an appetite for more, which is so
apt to become uncomfortable that
the strongest warning should be
urged against taking that little,
and thus forming the appetite.
2. They must teach, also, the
hereditary and acquired effects of
these upon the human system ; that
is, upon the whole being-mental,
moral and physical. The appall-
ing effects OF drinking habits upon
the citizenship of the nation, the
degradation and crime resulting,
demand that instruction here
should give clear and emphatic
utterance to the solemn warnings
of science on this subject.
3. This instruction must be as
well graded to the capacities of
each class of pupils as the modern
school readers are. A book fit for
high schools put into the primary
or intermediate classes will make
the study a failure there. Truth
is just as true and as scientific
when told in easy words as when
putinto stilted technicalities which
the child cannot understand.
4. In all grades below the high
school the poisonous nature and
effects of alcoholic drinks, tobacco,
opium, and other narcotics should
be the chief and not the subordin-
ate topic, and should occupy at
least one-fourth the space in text
books for these grades, with only
physiology enough to make the n.y.
glene of temperance and other laws
of health Ineligible.
1t is not desirable to have a sep
arate book for the physiology here
tofore studied in the high school, or
limit the amount, but 1t least
twenty pages out of that ordinarily
required should be given to the
question of the poisonous nature
and effects of alcoholic and other
narcotics, in textbooks for these
classes.
The effects of these substances
upon the human system should be
stated in each division of the sub
Ject of physiology and hygiene,
and not be massed as an appendage
at the end of the book.
Lacking in any of these poir is,
textbook on Scientific Temper
ance is incomplete, and the use in
the schools OF such book will not
result in strong temperance SEN
tlment among the pupils using it..
Because the question of total ab-
stlnence for the children of this
country, and therefore of their we'll
being and that of the land soon to
De governed by them, depends 80
largely upon the teachings in these
books, we cannot lower this stand
ard or indorse books that fall below
it.