52 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 367. 



of rum-sellers have as good a right to have 

 their views on temperance education 

 printed by the National . Government as 

 any woman.' * * * The following ex- 

 tract, ' ' says Mrs. Hunt, ' ' from a letter a 

 lady from his own State Avrote that senator 

 is a fair illustration of the reception his 

 ideas received among his constituency: 

 ' When I knew you, sir, in our state, you 

 were a chivalric Southern gentleman. 

 Imagine my indignation at the audacity 

 of the reporter who dares to report you as 

 saying that ' ' liquor men have as good a 

 right to be heard in the Congress of the 

 United States on the education of the chil- 

 dren as any lady. * * * I am sure you 

 must be misrepresented, for no man who 

 would say such a thing in the national 

 Senate could represent a white man's gov- 

 ernment from this State. " ' ' Many such 

 letters, ' adds Mrs. Hunt, ' reached that 

 senator, and thus his opposition died.' 



No wise educator who has given any at- 

 tention to the siibject can deny that the 

 influence of this powerful propaganda lias 

 been in most respects injurious to the 

 proper teaching of physiology and hygiene 

 in the lower schools. Teachers, principals, 

 superintendents, and even school commit- 

 tees, are seldom able to speak mth perfect 

 frankness on the subject, from fear of the 

 influences which may be brought to bear 

 against them or of the intemperate criti- 

 cism to which they may be exposed; and 

 in my opinion it is time for a body of scien- 

 tific men like the American Society of 

 Naturalists or the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science to put 

 on record its opinion that the subjection 

 under which science and education ■ are 

 to-day sufferiug from the ' temperance 

 physiology ' propaganda has become in- 

 tolerable. 



I lately examined with some care a good 

 text-book of elementary physiology and 

 was shocked on opening it to find at the 



very beginning, and in a most prominent 

 place, an entire page devoted to an ' in- 

 dorsement ' of the book by the self -consti- 

 tuted oligarchy wliich has the assurance 

 to ' approve ' or not, as it sees fit, text- 

 books on physiology and hygiene for use 

 in secondary and lower schools. In the 

 case I mention this committee did not even 

 confine their ' approval ' to the alcoholic 

 and narcotic portions of the book but ' in- 

 dorsed ' also its ' amount of matter on gen- 

 eral hygiene, ' as well as the ' presentation 

 of matter with regard to its adaptability to 

 the class of students for which it is de- 

 signed ' ; or, in other words, passed upon its 

 scientific and pedagogical merit, as well 

 as upon its alcoholic value. If, as would 

 sometimes seem to be the case, it has actually 

 come to pass, at the beginning of this twen- 

 tieth century, that a writer who desires to 

 publish an elementary text-book on physi- 

 ology and hygiene, before he can obtain a 

 publisher or a market, may have to secure 

 the ' indorsement ' of ' Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, 

 "World's and National Superintendent of 

 Scientific Temperance Instruction of the 

 Woman's Christian Temperance Union,' 

 of ' the Rev. Daniel Dorchester, D.D., Vice- 

 President of the Massachusetts Total Ab- 

 stinence Society, ' and the rest of this self- 

 constituted committee, it is high time that 

 cognizance should be taken of the fact by 

 scientific men and educators and a protest 

 entered. 



On further examining the book to which 

 I have just referred, I was' even more dis- 

 turbed to find that this author, like some 

 other recent M'riters on . elementary phys- 

 iology and hygiene, doubtless with the 

 New York law before his eyes (Avhicli re- 

 quires that ' this subject must be treated 

 in the text-books in connection with the 

 various divisions of physiology and hy- 

 giene, and pages on this subject in a sepa- 

 rate chapter at the end of the book shall 

 not be counted ' ) had actually felt bound to 



