The Brookhaven leader., 1889-08-22
FUTURE sTANoARD.esARERs.
Where the Hope Of NIe Temperance
Movement May he Found.

1he children OF to-day are the nope
OF the future. The best Temperance
work of the present is being done by
men and women who as boys and
girls were early pledged to total alb
stinence and thoroughly indoc-
trinated in fundamental Temperance
truth These are the men and
women who may be depended upon to
uphold everywhere the tOtal-absti-
nence standard because Of the evil
involved in the use OF intoxicating
beverages, and to lead in the crusade,
through good and through evil re-
port, for the total suppression of the
drink traffic. These educated total
abstainers, whose education began,
perhaps, in some juvenile Temper
ance organization in their early child
hood, are thoroughly equipped SOL
diers. ready in the great conflict with
the drink oligarchy to do full duty in
every emergency. Responsibility
equally great for the maintenance
and advancement of the Temperance
reform will, in the near future, de-
volve upon the children OF to-day.
Much very useful juvenile Tenn
perance work is being done, but very
much more ought TO be done. Null
titudes of the children OF temperate,
reputable parents, who themselves
pay little heed to the temperance re-
form, and know little of it, are being
brought up without any intelligent
Temperance instruction.
On the night preceding our recent
Fourth of July holiday, fond of ad-
venture, three boys or young men in
their teens were out late to have a
"good time" After midnight, one OF
them, the son of a widowed mother, a
member of popular church and
Sunday-school, was led home stagger-
ing, screaming drunk by another Of the
three, himself also much unde: the in
fuence of intoxicants. The third of the
trio returned to his home sober but in
sorrow and disgust. He fortunately
had signed the total-abstinence pledge,
pledging himself to abstain even from
cider, when he was eight years old.
1t is still his safeguard, and withoutit
restraining influence it is not unlikely
that he, too, would have gone home
drunk. The holiday over, the other
two were heartily ashamed of their
escapade But they have yielded and
fallen once, some measure of self-re-
spect is gone, and no one can tel how
soon they may be confronted with and
surrender to some new, unexpected
temptation. Without the total-ab-
stinence pledge they are as the ship
at sea without Il rudder. Nor were
they of the poor. specially exposed
class of young people; they belong
to what is called good society,"" and
the church of which one is member
is popular and fashionable, but does
little relatively for the cause of Tenn
perance, nor does the subject of Tenn
perance receive any cons iderable at
tentiou in its Sabbath
When young people go forth with
out adequate instruction, either in the
home, the church or the Sunday
school, concerning the danger in
volved in alcoholic beverages, it is
not surprising that many stumble and
fall. 1t is perhaps surprising that
more do not.
Temperance teaching for the chill
dren should begin in the home. That
parental instruction is deplorably de-
fcient which does not include it. But.
alas! how many parents there are
who are themselves drinkers-in
moderation, it may be-of beer,
wine, cider, or of the stronger intoxi-
cants! With such the lesson of ex-
ample to children, the most potent of
teachers, is in the wrong direction
and full of peril.
An eleven-year-old Brooklyn boy
died recently in the City Hospital
from alcoholism. The child of
drinking parents, he had also been
employed to carry cans of beer to
workmen. and on his frequent return
trips from the saloon drank some of
the beer himself. Finally he drank
to insensibility, and the empty beer
can was found beside him.
What the home so often fails to
provide for the children IL the way of
Temperance instruction. schools
Sunday and secular-may and should
measurably supply. Every church
should have Temperance organiza-
tion of some kind for its young peo-
pie, and every Sunday-school should
give Temperance instruction in some
form to the children.
Great expectations have been
awakened, greater than as yet have
been realized, by the action of many
States to provide for scientific Tenn
perance instruction in the public
schools. 1t would seem that what is
now left so largely to voluntary ac-
ton on the part of public-school of.
ficials and teachers must needs be
made more mandatory before any
thing like the full measure of possible
usefulness will be attained in the
sphere of public-school Temperance
| instruction.
The readiest and. perhaps. mos
influential way to reach and impress
the children of the Nation with TEN
perance truth is through juvenil,
Temperance literature.
| This elemental seed-sowing amonj
the children in all classes of societ
and in every part of our widely-ex