Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1915-02-18

20, is to be postponed 10 saturday,
Feb. 27, at Mrs p NJ. Smiths, on ac-
count of the Senior fair at the high
school, Feb 20.
Temperance Instruction in Schools.
Put yourself back, if you can, forty
years ago when there was no scientific
temperance teaching, tho few peo-
pie like Frances Willard had grasped
the scientific fact that wherever alco-
hol turks there is danger. Beer and
wine were only delightful kindergar-
tens to the graduate school of whiskey,
gin, and brandy. and to the great mass
OF the American people beer was
bread. a wholesome. nutritious drink
that could hurt no one. Physicians
prescribed it for nursing mothers,
quite ignorant or careless that the in
nocent baby might draw drunkenness
from its mothers bosom, and have
its little brain hardened like a hard
boiled egg before it had ever begun to
think.
There was a general impression
that whiskey might be had, if you
took too much of it, but a morning
toddy and an evening nightcap keyed
one up for the days work and the
nights sleep, and few sips between
were not bad when a neighbor drop
ped in. only one should drink like a
gentleman, and people scarcely noticed
that when you were once sliding down
hill it was impossible to stop in the
middle and go back, and that the
momentum of the slide would certain
~ land you i'm the gutter at its foot
The drunkard might be safely con-
demned, but the moderate drinker, who
"could drink when he pleased and let
it alone when he pleased was patted
on the back as a hale fellow we'll met
But the en-sighted eye of Frances
Willard was not satisfied with simply
seeing all these fallacies herself, nor
was she satisfied with telling the
scientific truth to the "grown-ups" who
had been all their lives believing and
acting upon the opposite of her scien-
tifc knowledge, until habit had chain
ed them as tight as Prometheus to his
mountain rock, and with the vulture
most certainly preying upon their
vitals. In this weller of ignorance
how could even her persuasive silver
tongue arrest the American people?
So two great women put their heads
together and devised a plan, which for
comprehensive insight into the very
nature and beginning Of things has
been unequaled, and which has the
wisdom Of the serpent and the harm
lessness Of the dove in its very essence.
LET me teach the young child says
that master of efficiency, the Jesuit.
"and care not what you try to teach
him later" so this wonderful thought
dominated the Woman's Christian
Temperance Union and it created its
new department, Scientific Teaching
for the Young" in order that every
child in school in America should
have planted in its mind the scientific
truth that there is danger i'm alcohol
to the efficiency of the muscles, to the
structure of the nerves and brain, to
the heart action, TO the delicate lining
of the stomach, to the liver. and to the
kidneys. and even more than all to
the life blood in which is the life itself
Teach that truth to the child and you
have saved the nation. Scientific
temperance teaching every public
school was won from first one be-
nighted, whisky and beer-ridden leg
islature, and then another, and an
other until every legislature in the
Union had passed laws compelling the
schools to teach the truth in regard to
the effect of alcohol upon the body.
1t seemed well to our legislators
that every child in America should
learn that Cape Severe Vostachnoi was
known as the most northern point of
Asia, though he would never sail
amidst It's dangerous currents and
reefs, but it did not seem wise to these
solons that he should know that the
life current in his own little body
could be ruined by the pleasant, neigh
borly man who kept the grog- shop
next door. To take one instance: In
Missouri Mrs.. Harriet Worthington.
superintendent of Scientific Temper
ance instruction. carried up to the leg
islature a bill TO teach the children,
anu Wildb AlN We Etb - db II any
parent desired to have his child taught
in the public schools, the school was
to teach that child, and no other-a
bill so distorted from the original that
its own author would not know it.
But, our w. c. 7. IT,, women cared
not for its wording, but rushed scien-
siic teaching into every public school
in Missouri. even including the public
schools of st. Louis, with the Anheus-
er-Busch breweries crashing their
teeth at the escape from their clutches
# the million children Of Missouri.
A generation passes through the
craded schools of America every six
ears, and now they are voters going
to the polls TO free their states. The
educated millions of America learned
in their youth the scientific danger of
alcohol, however diluted, and can one
wonder that they are voting out it's