LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 50£ 



"which traverse the whole system, the miraculous organ which at every throb 

 sends the life-giving blood into the most minute parts of the body, the 

 great busy brain at work within the cranium, the intricate machinery of the 

 digestive apparatus, the manner in which air penetrates the cells of the 

 lungs, and then the deadly effects of alcohol and tobacco on all of these 

 living tissues, are as well understood by children from five to ten years of 

 age, as by men and women of middle life. Our age cannot be credited with 

 the original idea of teaching temperance to the young. We find in the 

 Bible that the children of the Eechabites to the third and fourth generation 

 were taught total abstinence. And when the immense family were strongly 

 urged to drink wine, they defended themselves by saying: " We have obeyed 

 the voice of our fathers, who charged us to drink no wine in all our days, 

 we, our wives, our sons or daughters." If our law can be universally 

 enforced and the children everywhere taught the dangers of these poisons, 

 we may look for grand manhood and womanhood among the youths of our 

 land. Will we allow these valuable laws which have been enacted at great 

 expense to tax-payers and through the agency of prayers and thoughts and 

 labor of the best minds of our State — aye, can we afford to allow them to 

 become <f dead letters" on our statute books through lack of energy and 

 interest? Our superintendent of public instruction says: "It is certain 

 that no measure can be made more effectual for the advancement of the 

 cause of temperance and morality than thorough and faithful and honest 

 instruction given in our public schools to all pupils in regard to the effects 

 of alcohol and narcotics on the body and soul." 



Our public school system is dear to the hearts of all American citizens, 

 and may we guard it jealously against all encroachments. Mere intellectual 

 training does not insure good citizenship, as the records of our reformatory 

 institutions will furnish abundant proof; therefore, if we wish to have a 

 nation of thinkers — upright, honest, industrious, temperate — we must have 

 these principles thoroughly incorporated into our system of public instruc- 

 tion, for " Whatever you would have appear in a nation's life you must put 

 into its schools." 



DISCUSSION ON TOWNSHIP UNIT FOR SCHOOL DISTRICTS. 



Mr. Powell : Farmers who appreciate the value of education often feel, as 

 their children approach maturity, that they must move into town in order to 

 secure the better schooling there offered. This ought not so to be. Country 

 children are entitled to their country homes, and to receive within reach of 

 them as good schooling as is afforded to city children. This can only be 

 done by organizing the townships as single districts, and establishing at 

 or near the center of each a township high school. This would be more 

 economical than sending our children away from home and its saving influ- 

 ences to shift for themselves in the cities, and more economical than for us 

 perforce to move our homes and ourselves to the cities for the purpose of 

 reaching the schools. 



Mr. Gorsline: This township unit system insures to all of the children in 

 a township equal educational opportunities, be their own especial neigh- 

 borhood poorer or richer than the rest of the township. 



It also lessens the burden of taxation both by distributing more equally 

 the cost of maintaining the schools and by materially lessening the cost. 



