The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-04-26

! lIcIdl cOfdScatlOnS ara Withdrawn.
When [ see our school boys stunning
their growth and drying up their brains
with smoke; when | discover that their
very cigars are soaked in alcohol and
liquors, and that the boys are baited
with beer and enticed into saloons by
music, games and evil company; when
am told of their degeneracy in
scholarship, so that the percentage of
girls who graduate and who take
honors is steadily gaining on that Of
the boys, it seems to me that | can not
wait until the schools of my country
focus their splendid light upon the
problem of prevention. 1t is glorious
thing to go to the rescue of wicked and
ruined manhood with the life-boat of
reform, but far better to build a light
I house on the sunken reef, warning the
unskilled voyager of his danger
In the light of ten years work as q
teacher of total abstinence from alco-
holic poison, solemnly aver that had
the power our system of education
should be so changed that the course Of
study for every pupil, from the kinder
gaten toddler to the high school gradu-
grounds our very being-on natural
law. They should know the laws of
health first of all, since their physical
being is the firm base of the whole pyr-
amid of character. According to law
is the method as it is the philosophic ex-
PLANTATION of the universe so far as we can
spell it out The blessed word ''healtkH
once literally meant ''holiness," aze
that means simply "wholeness." This
| body of ours was meant to be the tenn
pie of the Holy Spirit, but enemies have
| taken possession of it and dimmed or
well nigh eXtinguished the Shehinah.
| The alcohol and nicotine poisons leagued
with bad food, unnatural dress, bad VEN
tilation and ill-proportioned exercise,
are the demons that hold the sacred
citadel. Yet we call ourselves science
loving people and think we care
to know Gods reason why! His
laws written in our members
we pass lightly over that we may
learn mans formula for parsing verb
or constituting foreign quotation. Even
the SaXons knew that every man has
lain on his own trencher;" that what we
eat, more than all other contingencies,
determines what we are; but we pass
over these weightiest matters of the
changeless laws of hygiene that we may
1.-THE the mint and cummin of gram
NAUTICAL punctilio and mathematical
accomplishment. Even when we study
the natural sciences we soar amid the
stars and hammer the rocks or dissect
flowers; but place the study of our own
more splendid organism at the foot Of
the list, instead of building the whole
edifice of education upon this solid
rock, against which the gates of hell
shall not prevail. Our obliquity of Wis
ion at this point is fatal to tho logical
sequence of our entire scheme, and
will be the amazement of wiser and
happier generations. In the school Of
the future carefully trained hygienists
will be steadily at work studying the
habits of the children and teaching
them. seientihe grounds, how they
may form those upon which physical
sanity is conditioned. AS a be-
ginning of this vital education I would
teach on scientific grounds the unrea-
sonableness of using alcoholic drinks.
BY every practical method of illustra-
ton and experiment would set before
my pupils that tho tendency Of yester-
day is likely to become the habit of to-
day and the bondage of tomorrow.
They should be drilled ints the fact that
the alcoholic habit is cumulative, subtly
| strengthening by what it feeds upon,
so that tho ignorant claim that drinks
like cider, beer and wine are prevent
| ives of drunkenness, should be an insult
to their intelligence.
In my geography should be laid down
the maelstrom of moderate drinking,
and the Niagara Of drunkenness; in my
grammar, the conjugation of the verbs
ito be" and ''to do" as related to a boys
life proceedings should be no moro ir-
regular, and in my arithmetic the knotty
problem of life should be the one on
whose solution most of study was ex-
pended.
| believe this systematic instruction,
which both forewarns and forearmS
them, to be the road out of bondage for
the children of America. No other in
stitution of the Republic reaches them
all. Powerful as are the forces of the
pulpit and press, the former does not at
| UraCI all ears. anu INC ldLIer 10 largely
influenced by the saloon in finance and
the saloon in politics. But to the
school-house door come white and black,
native and foreign born; inside it's
walls are invested their formative
years, and the laws of their being, as set
forth by science, must appeal to their
self-love, an attribute upon which we
may always confidently base our cal
culations. The German, who learns
that the laws of nature take sides
with local abstinence, will gradually
cease the cry of 'fanaticism." His
boy comes home from school and tells
him that in time of pestilence and sun
stroke the beer-drinkers pay forfeit and
the total abstainers get off scot free;
that these last are at a premium with
the life insurance companies; that they
win in the athletic games; that they are
the successful explorers and victorious
soldiers, and that chemistry, physiology
and hygiene prove that this must always
be so. Mein Herr scoffed at the cru
sading women, but the dignity Of SCI
ence will do much to silence him, and
it will convince his children. / beseech
L.