EDITOR'S TABLE. 



555 



wliicb it has been impossible to bring 

 about by the most vigorous, prolonged, 

 and comprehensive moral movement of 

 modern times, can still be brought about 

 through the passage of enactments by 

 political majorities. 



How far this change went may be 

 further illustrated. In the first stage of 

 the temperance movement the wrong 

 to be righted was on the part of the 

 individual who indulged in drinking- 

 liabits. The practice was denounced 

 because held to be intrinsically immor- 

 al, self-destructive, and vicious in all its 

 influences. The tui-pitude and wicked- 

 ness of the case consisted in the act of 

 indulgence. But, with the change of 

 tactics on the part of the reformers, 

 the point of assault was shifted : the 

 pressure was virtually taken ofl^ the 

 party that committed the wrong act, 

 and applied to the commercial transac- 

 tion that preceded it. The liquor-trade 

 was denounced as the real root of the 

 evil of intemperance, and the men who 

 sold alcoholic spirits were held to be the 

 culpable offenders and the criminals who 

 deserved to be dealt with by punish- 

 ment like other criminals. Yet the sale 

 of liquors, like the sale of anything else, 

 is a compound transaction — a seller im- 

 plies a buyer — and they are both volun- 

 tary parties to the proceeding. If that 

 proceeding is wrong, both are to be con- 

 demned — certainly the one who makes 

 the demand as much as he who supplies 

 it; and, if the partnership transaction is 

 criminal, it is difficult to see why both 

 should not be punished alike. But, in 

 the new aspect of the case, he who 

 drinks is virtually relieved from con- 

 demnation, while those who sell him 

 the beverage become the objects of con- 

 centrated reprobation, to be punished 

 with the full severity of the law. This 

 fundamental change in the policy of the 

 temperance movement, involving as it 

 does the virtual abandonment of those 

 agencies which are most proper to in- 

 fluence conduct, and which were clearly 

 vindicated in their beneficent working. 



can hardly be regarded as a step for- 

 ward in the legitimate development of 

 the temperance movement. 



It is in the light of such experiences 

 that we are to consider the measure 

 now brought forward for the further 

 promotion of abstinence from intoxi- 

 cating liquors. 



This measure is a partial reversion 

 to the older method, and may be char- 

 acterized as politico-educational, with 

 special relation to the scientific aspect 

 of the subject. It is proposed to give 

 instruction in relation to the physio- 

 logical effects of alcohol, and thus, as 

 has been said, " to play the school-house 

 against the saloon." It may be well 

 to do this, but it will be wise not to 

 expect too much from it. It is a very 

 crude measure, and has been born of 

 temperance zeal rather than any intelli- 

 gent appreciation of the subject. 



In the first place, the action of al- 

 cohol and the narcotics upon the human 

 system opens one of the obscurest, and 

 we may add, the most unsettled, of all 

 questions. But little, in fact, is known 

 of the modus operandi of these agents 

 upon the nervous system, where they 

 take such special and disastrous effect. 

 School-teachers can not explain it — 

 doctors can not explain it ; no two will 

 agree about it. The theories of the be- 

 havior of alcohol in the human system 

 have undergone change after change 

 within a generation, and we are proba- 

 bly but little nearer the final solution of 

 the problem than when the first experi- 

 ments were made upon cats and dogs 

 to solve it. 



In the next place, the amount of 

 physiology that is or that can be taught 

 in common schools, and by all the teach- 

 ers under State control, is grossly in- 

 sufficient to make intelligible what is 

 known of the physiological effects of 

 alcohol. The crude smattering of phys- 

 iology got in such schools under ordi- 

 nary teaching is absolutely worthless 

 as a preparation for understanding the 

 subtile influence of narcotic agents upon 



