3+8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ranee of text-book makers who have never heard of its laws and 

 principles. It is obscured by the popular demand for its associa- 

 tion with hygiene. The knowledge of rules of health is most 

 valuable, but it is not physiology. The real bases on which such 

 practical generalizations rest are never simple, and in most cases 

 they are beyond the reach of elementary text-books. The rules 

 of health ordinarily given are not deduced from physiological 

 laws. They are rather the expression of the experience of the 

 race. Their introduction into books on physiology is perhaps jus- 

 tified by their utility. But their presence interferes with the de- 

 velopment of the science. In an ideal educational arrangement 

 hygiene will have a place to itself, and will not crowd out physi- 

 ology any more than it will chemistry or physics. The anti-alco- 

 holic material demanded in " scientific temperance," in all its va- 

 rious grades, takes all form of scientific impartiality away from 

 the discussion of hygiene, while physiology being mere science is 

 crowded out altogether. In the book in hand all proportion of 

 parts is lost sight of, while the effort to teach physiology as sci- 

 ence is virtually abandoned. 



If physiology is not wanted in the schools, let us give it up. 

 But if hygiene is to be substituted, let us have it from pure 

 sources. The rules of health should come from those who have 

 made them a life study, using the methods and tests of science. 

 If temperance is the sole important part of hygiene, let us again 

 demand the words of the highest authorities. Let us incite to 

 sobriety by the words of soberness, not by the battle-cries of the 

 Crusaders. 



By casting aside the orderly development of the science of 

 physiology we may find place anywhere in our text-books for dis- 

 cussions of alcohol and its effects. In Our Bodies and How we 

 Live we find sixty-seven pages devoted to it out of a total of 

 four hundred and twelve. The corresponding book of the In- 

 diana Series has but two pages in three hundred and one. And 

 in the former work this matter is not gathered together in one 

 place, where it might be disposed of in one lesson, or even omitted 

 by the evil-minded teacher, but it is diffused throughout. the book, 

 so that no topic or discussion is free from allusions to it. In no 

 part of the volume can we escape from the contemplation of the 

 ravages of alcohol. 



For example, we have in the description of the bony frame- 

 work (page 40) a discussion of " the effect of alcohol and tobacco 

 on the bones," as follows : 



" Since the bones constitute the framework of the body, a per- 

 son's form depends upon the size and shape of his bones. The 

 bones grow during childhood and youth ; whatever growth one 

 loses during that time can not be afterward made up. It is the 



