SOME THINGS NOT TO TEACH.

1. There are questions connected with the food value of alcohol and with alcohol considered as a poison which have not yet been answered to the entire satisfaction of leading scientists, and the public school-teacher will do well to omit all discussion of them. There is enough that is known about alcohol to condemn its use as a beverage.

2. Do not teach that an appetite for alcohol or tobacco is commonly inherited. If such cases exist they are very rare. Certain physical weaknesses which have been caused by the use of narcotics may doubtless be inherited, and such weaknesses may render their possessor more susceptible to the alcohol or tobacco habit. Teach this.

3. Do not teach that tobacco creates an appetite for alcohol, but that one bad habit often leads to another, and, therefore, the user of tobacco is more likely to become a user of alcoholic liquors.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXPERIMENTS.

Guard against using illustrative experiments which convey wrong impressions. For instance, because pure alcohol will harden many animal and vegetable substances placed in it by extracting water from them, it does not follow that all alcoholic liquors, as usually taken, have so great an effect on those substances in the stomach. When such liquors are drunk, the stomach pours out an abundance of gastric juice to further dilute the alcohol, and thus greatly lessens the power of the alcohol to retard digestion. Alcoholic liquors tend to cause a waste of gastric juice and to weaken the stomach.

CHARTS AND BOOKS.

Pictorial illustrations appeal strongly to children. Facts which make little or no impression when stated in words often produce a lasting impression when represented to the eye by means of a striking picture.

1. Charts which show the comparative cost of liquors and the food or schools of the country are suggestive. Charts which show the effects of alcohol on the stomach should be used with caution, especially those charts that are repulsive to sensitive children.

2. Books. We know of no physiologies published in this country for primary or grammar grades that are satisfactory. Some books give an undue proportion of space to temperance matters, and some have not been revised and brought up to date. Under the circumstances, therefore, and until satisfactory books are published, care should be taken to correct or omit all misleading statements in the books used, but in making corrections great care should be taken not to convey the impression that an argument is being made in favor of even the moderate or occasional use of narcotics. It is hoped that books which are scientifically accurate and at the same time strong but reasonably brief in their temperance features will soon be published.

CONCLUSION.

While this committee can not indorse the view that in teaching physiology and hygiene" temperance should be the chief topic," while they believe that temperance should be presented as only one of many topics under the subject of hygiene, and that much the greater part of the time should be given to other matters, they are unanimous in the belief that all the children should be thoroughly instructed in the evil effects of narcotics on the human body and

character as well as on society and the state. They earnestly hope, therefore, that all teachers in Connecticut will give to this subject the attention which its importance demands.

REPORT OF THE NEW YORK STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE AS TO THE RESULTS OF THE STUDY OF PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE, BEING A REPLY TO THE STATE SCIENCE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION.

NEW YORK STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE ON SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE INSTRUCTION IN

Inasmuch as certain strictures on the present system of teaching physiology and hygiene in the schools of this State were made by the committee on stimulants and narcotics of the New York State Science Teachers' Association at its last annual meeting (December 28, 1901), attention is called to the following statement of facts:

In 1895 the temperance committees of the various churches and representatives of other philanthropic organizations in New York State united with the State Woman's Christian Temperance Union under the name of the New York State Central Committee for Scientific Temperance Instruction, the object being to secure the present law requiring the study by all pupils in the public schools of physiology and hygiene, including the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics.

It is the settled policy not of New York alone, but of this entire country, to require by law the study in question for all pupils in all public schools. Although the laws requiring it have not been long enough in force to show their utmost results, the beneficent effects of this study are already manifest:

First. In increased popular knowledge and practice of sanitary laws which are admitted to be contributing causes to the gain of four and one-tenth years in the average length of life in this country reported by the last census.

Second. In the demand of employers for abstinence in employees, following closely as it has upon the teaching in the schools that alcohol injures working ability.

Third. In the consequent greater sobriety of the American workman, which is acknowledged to be one factor in the commercial success of the United States.

The New York central committee, which never disbanded, has now reorganized to protect the instruction which it secured in its own State. In pursuance of this purpose the committee presents the following reply to the Science Teachers' Association:

NO LIMIT OF SAFETY IN THE USE OF ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.

The report of the State Science Teachers' Association, after admitting that it does not undertake to prescribe the limit of safety (in the use of alcoholic drinks) for the average adult, says later that "spirits should never be used as beverages unless largely diluted, and that alcohol in any form should be taken only at meals and after the work of the day is done," and that "youths under 21 should abstain altogether," as though after that period they might use alcoholic drinks with safety. They urge the importance of self-control, adding that "the world belongs to those who can control themselves, but the man who uses alcohol in excess can never do this."

This whole section is a specious plea for moderate drinking, with the qualification that youths should abstain before they are 21. Such an argument is dangerous, fallacious, and not sustained by science or experience.

Concerning the effects of alcohol on children and youth, Dr. G. Bunge, professor of physiological chemistry in the University of Basel, Switzerland, says in a recent article: "I have never yet heard any valid reason for this opinion that alcohol is less injurious to adults than to children. If one would answer the question on the grounds of experience, he must compare the effects of proportionate doses upon the organism of the child and that of the adult. If, for example, a child weighing 20 kilograms received a quarter of a liter of wine daily and a man weighing 80 kilograms receives 1 liter, I do not know whether the man would bear the wine any better than the child or not."

In its discussion of this phase of the alcohol question, the State Science Teach

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ers' Association seems to forget the fact that alcohol, like opium, morphine, and other narcotics, when taken with any continuity, even in moderate amounts, has the power to create the uncontrollable and destructive appetite for more. This power is not lost when it is taken "diluted" as in beer, wine, and cider, in "diluted" whisky, "with meals" or after the day's work is done," or whether under or over 21. No one can tell how long he may be able to resist the power of alcohol to make him its slave. It is this power which makes it futile to attempt to teach self-control in the use of a substance whose nature it is to destroy self-control. It is this inherent quality to create the alcoholic appetite which furnishes the scientific basis for total abstinence and leaves no justification for calling the moderate use of alcohol "strict temperance." Because of this power the "difference to be emphasized" between moderate and excessive use, for which the Science Teachers' Association contends, should be that the moderate use leads to "excessive" use, and "excessive" use leads to destruction. Therefore, whoever begins the moderate use lessens his chances of securing that portion of the world "which belongs to those who can best control themselves."

Such physiological investigators as Professors Bunge, of the University of Basel; Meyer, of Gottenberg; and Frick, of Zurich, testify to the same truth as that expressed by John Madden, M. D., of Wisconsin, who says:

So subtle are the processes of the narcotics, of which alcohol is one, in creating a need on the part of the nervous system for a repetition of the same drug, that the habitué becomes such before he is aware; and his chance to regain his former mental and physical condition, other things being equal, is in exact ratio to the amount of damage he has sustained from alcoholic poisoning.

As to taking alcohol with meals, Prof. Victor Horsley, of the University of London, says:

From a scientific standpoint the claim so often put before us that small quantities of alcohol, such as people take at meals, have practically no deleterious effect, can not be maintained.

The idea that there is safety in taking it "after the day's work is done" is a delusion, for Professor Kraepelin, of Heidelberg University, Germany, has shown by actual demonstration that

Alcohol causes a diminution of brain power which lasts sometimes until evening of the second day.

Hence, for the person who is unwilling to surrender any portion of his intellectual ability to this substance or to run the risk of becoming its slave, abstinence is the only safety, whether he is under 21 or over, or whether alcohol be taken with or without meals.

METHODS OF INVESTIGATION COMPARED.

The report of the State Science Teachers' Association criticises our temperance physiology law as though it demands merely instruction concerning alcoholic drinks and other narcotics, ignoring its requirements in general hygiene. The fact is that only one-fifth of the space in the text-books for primary and grammar grades and but 20 pages in high school books need be given to the subject of alcohol and narcotics. All the rest is physiology and hygiene.

The investigation conducted by the committee from the State Science Teachers' Association was threefold in character

First. An effort to secure the opinion of supervising teachers of the State on the status of this subject in the schools.

Second. An inquiry of physiology classes in two normal schools to ascertain

their attitude toward this subject, and what they had gained from previous study.

Third. A list of questions to college and medical school professors and members of the committee of fifty, high school physiology teachers in the cities and towns of New York and New England, to ascertain their opinion of the law and what should be taught under it.

1. It is a noteworthy fact that in the effort to secure the opinions of the teachers of the State the Science Teachers' Association was obliged to admit that the grammar school men, who come most closely in contact with the children, favored physiology throughout the whole course to a greater degree than other groups, while in all the groups there were teachers favoring the present provisions of the law.

2. The inquiry in normal school classes has little practical bearing on the subject, because young people are seldom able to decide intelligently what studies are necessary to an all-round development nor what are the formative influences which have shaped their own habits and character. No one would consider that the interest in mathematics, or their lack of it, on the part of normal school students should have any weight in deciding whether mathematics should be pursued either in the normal or public graded schools. Why, then, is this subject? If, however, it was the expectation of the committee to prove by such investigation that normal pupils felt they had been getting too much physiology through the grades, the facts elicited proved exactly the contrary. None of the pupils questioned considered that such had been the case, but on the contrary nearly one-fifth of those questioned felt that they wanted more of the subject. 3. As to the third line of investigation of the State Science Teachers' Association, the question may justly be raised why the Science Teachers' Association felt it necessary to consult college and medical school professors and high school teachers in New England as to the practical working of this law in the public schools of New York.

The New York State central committee, on the contrary, has sought for speciñe information concerning the results of the study of this whole subject from those best qualified to judge of its effects upon the children of this State, namely, their parents and the patrons of the schools.

Some parents receiving our questions sought additional information from teachers. Thus much testimony has been obtained incidentally from those engaged in the actual work of instruction through the various grades. Responses to our inquiries have been received from 361 different sections, including leading towns and cities, representing every county in the State.

RESULTS OF TEACHING GENERAL HYGIENE.

In response to the questions:

Do the children in your public schools report at home facts of general hygiene learned at school? and

Is the teaching influencing the hygienic habits of children?

parents testify that as a result of this study the children do practice and bring home the truths thus learned. They insist upon proper ventilation of sleeping and living rooms, and tell how to get it. They comment on the danger of drains or pools of stagnant water in cellars, dooryards, or near wells, and urge the necessity of using pure water. The importance of eating slowly and at regular intervals, the proper selection and cooking of food, its adaptation to season, suitable dress, the harmfulness of corsets, the danger of drafts, are facts learned at school and put to practical use by the children. They ask for toothbrushes and individual towels, and object to public drinking cups. They become