124 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sarily persons devoid of all lii;;h mo- 

 tives, and liardly to bo distinj^uislied 

 from the criminal population. But if 

 a minority in the State is to be respect- 

 ed so long as it is law-abiding, its opin- 

 ions are also to be respected ; and to 

 seize hold of the school- machinery of 

 the State to inculcate opinions that are 

 not accepted by the minority, and that 

 tend to set the minority in a very un- 

 favorable light, is not right or just. If 

 every triumphant party were to seize 

 the public schools for the inculcation 

 of doctrines favorable to its own party 

 interests, there would soon be an end 

 of our public-school system. It would 

 always be easy to invoke the name of 

 science. If it were desired to rear a race 

 of protectionists, it would only be neces- 

 sary to claim that you were teaching 

 the truths of political economy. The 

 proper text-books would be prepared, 

 and teachers, on pain of dismissal, 

 would have to enunciate the doctrines 

 of Henry C. Carey and Horace Greeley. 

 And so in the days of slavery the science 

 of ethnology might have been invoked 

 either on the side of abolition or in de- 

 fense of the slave system, according to 

 the leaning of the majority. At this 

 moment we have the president of a 

 New England college recommending 

 the majority in the several States to 

 use their power to enforce the teaching 

 of certain specific views of New Testa- 

 ment history which he is pleased to 

 declare all competent critics have ac- 

 cepted. 



"But," say the advocates of the 

 teaching to which we refer, " we only 

 wish to inculcate the real results of 

 scientific research in regard to alcohol." 

 To which we rejoin that, in a communi- 

 ty like this, it is too soon to inculcate 

 the truth, supposing you have it, if the 

 issue is still practically open, and if 

 large numbers of your fellow-citizens 

 are not persuaded that what you call 

 the truth is the truth. Minorities have 

 their rights even when they are in the 

 wrong, and to use a school system which 

 the minority support to teach opinions 



which the latter do not believe to be 

 true is unfair. 



But there is another view of the mat- 

 ter. Are tlie advocates of such instruc- 

 tion prepared to have it communicat- 

 ed in a thoroughly non-partisan spirit? 

 Are they prepared to have the whole 

 truth taught, or do they want only that 

 part of the truth which is favorable to 

 the specific end they have in view ? Are 

 they prepared, for example, to give any 

 fair representation to the views of those 

 who consider that alcohol has its impor- 

 tant uses, dietetic and social? A few 

 years ago the " Contemporary Review " 

 opened its columns to a discussion of 

 the alcohol question ; and we are safe 

 in saying that there was a preponder- 

 ance of opinion among the many emi- 

 nent men who joined in the discussion, 

 in favor of a moderate use of alcoholic 

 beverages. In the August number of 

 the " North American Review " a well- 

 known physician of this city enters a 

 plea against the indiscriminate condem- 

 nation of narcotics and stimulants. Is 

 all this opinion to go unrepresented 

 when the alcohol question is introduced 

 into the schools? Of course it must, or 

 the specific object of the teaching would 

 be ruined. We say, therefore, that this 

 is not teaching science ; it is harnessing 

 science to the " temperance " cart, and 

 driving her under instructions from 

 " temperance " headquarters. 



We need not, however, confine our- 

 selves to general speculations as to what 

 is likely to happen when science is made 

 subservient to the propagation of special 

 views, for we have an example — and a 

 striking one — of what does happen in 

 such a case. In a recent number of 

 the " Boston Medical and Surgical 

 Journal," Dr. Joseph W. Warren, as- 

 sistant in physiology in the Medical 

 School of Harvard University, gives an 

 account of a pamphlet on the subject 

 of "Alcoholic Liquids as Therapeutic 

 Agents," issued by the Women's Tem- 

 perance Publication Association of Chi- 

 cago. This pamphlet, it is true, con- 

 sists of a chapter from a larger work 



