Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-03-19
w, z. 7. u. COLUMN.
THE SCHOOLS TO THE RESCUE.

WIN VIOLENCE anu pOISlStclCy ONOA
since it's introduction. These attacks
come from widely differing sources.
Most active, naturally, are the brew
ers and dealers, who see in the move
ment menace to their trade. Less
adroit and virulent but far more
insidious and effective is that made
by certain members of the medical
profession, and a few scientific men
ject to such instruction on the ground
that the statements in the books used
as to the effect of alcohol upon the
human body are not true.
Foremost among this class of 'oppo-
nents just now is Prof. Atwater of
Wesleyan University, who, by means
ofvery ingenious experiments, claims
that he has proved beyond the posi-
bility of doubt the erroneousness of
the statements contained in the text
books on physiology now in use. His
contention is that alcohol taken in
very limited quantities is food, and
at recent meeting of the New Eng
land school superintendent held in
Boston, he went so far as to assert
that it is immoral to teach the con-
trary.
Between these extremes will be
found other forces working in the
same direction, as social habits and
certain business and politicalinterests.
It seems evident that the attack upon
scientific temperance instruction is
to be continued with increasing vigor,
and the Journal of Education in re-
cent issue sounded a note of alarm,
and in the course of vigorous arti-
Gle on the subject said:
''If it should appear that the good
in scientific temperance can only be
saved by the united and vigorous
efforts of educational leaders, is there
any reason why they should rally for
it's rescue? All must agree that in
temperance is the great American
evil. 1t is not a question whether
beer in Germany and light wine in
France are harmless, nor yet whether
under certain circumstances light
beverages are beneficial as a relish.
Intemperance is terrible curse in
America. 1t undoes the work of the
school as nothing else can. There is
no distinction, intellectually, between
a Hottentot and collegian when
they are drunk. The schools, next to
the homes, are sufferers from the
drink habit. At a low estimate 100,-
600 children in the schools today suf
fer in food and in clothing by neglect
and through direct cruelty of intern
perate parents. Absence, hardness,
Indifference, weakness, dullness, and
various forms of viciousness in school
are chargeable to this canse.
"There is no far-reaching means of
staying the spread of this curse to the
next generation except through the
schools. If the schoolc can do nothing
in this crisis, then America must, ap-
parently, admit herself to be power
less to stay the drink habit. Why
should not the schools make a grand
effort to stay the spread of this curse?
Smallpox harms one person where
intoxicants harm hundreds, and yet
the child will not be admitted to
school unless he has been successfully
vaccinated.
elf intemperanee is a giant evil, if
it does the school a great injury, if
the school ought to do something in
the emergency, what shall it do? 1t
cannot deal with the political aspects
of the case, no more can it with the
religious. It's sphere is distinctively
educational. If alcoholic beverages
tend to the most serious physical,
and moral disorders, as every
sane person knows they do, it ought
to Ee possible to show why they wreck
the body and tumble it into the gut
ter; why they upset the mind and
make a man of culture an idiot, and
often maniac; why they sap the
morals and make a loving husband
and father, wife and mother worse
than sober savage that never heard
Of church or school. 1t ought to be
possible to teach children why intox-
icants thus ruin body, mind and
as nothing else in nature or
human nature can do. If there is
that can be taught in this
direction wisely, it ought to be taught.
''With all due Difference to the wis
dom of medical scientists, it may be
asked of what Importance it is to the
school that in small quantities, under
favorable conditions, alcohol may be
a food, or that in certain physical con-
ditions alcoholic light drinks may be