May 9, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



753 



mention his name? As to the intimation of 

 a mercenary motive, neither I, nor my 

 advisory board, nor the constituency we rep- 

 resent are one penny richer for the sale of 

 any text-book on this subject bearing our in- 

 dorsement. Resort to such charges is evi- 

 dence of conscious poverty of argument 

 against this movement. As to the promoters 

 of temperance education in the public schools 

 being a ' self -constituted oligarchy,' as Pro- 

 fessor Sedgwick says, we reply: 



The Superintendent and Advisory Board of 

 the Department of Scientific Temperance In- 

 struction in Schools and College represent the 

 World's and National Woman's Christian 

 Temperance Union in their oversight of the 

 study of temperance physiology in schools. 

 Thus this department has for its constitu- 

 ency the largest organization of women 

 in the world, who are banded together to 

 secure, as one of their objects, the protec- 

 tion of this special education for their 

 children. Hence, to call the work of this 

 department that of a 'self -constituted oli- 

 garchy,' as Professor Sedgwick does, shows 

 utter misapprehension of facts. 'A self -con- 

 stituted oligarchy,' i. e., 'power exercised by 

 a few' who are self-appointed, could not write 

 its ideas embodied in law on the federal 

 statute books and those of all the states of 

 this great republic. The laws requiring this 

 study and whatever is necessary to its being 

 taught represent the 75,000,000 American 

 people who have decided that their children 

 shall have this special education. It is sim- 

 ply futile to try to belittle this movement by 

 efforts to make it appear as anything less than 

 a national one which is rapidly becoming 

 world-wide.- Maky H. Huis^t. 



World and National Superintendent of the 

 Department of Scientific Temperance Instruc- 

 tion of the Woman's Christian Temperance 

 Union. 



TEMPERANCE PHYSIOLOGY IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



To THE Editor of Science: Mrs. Hunt ap- 

 parently sees no impropriety in a law which 

 requires temperance physiology, so called, to 

 be taught to 'all pupils' in the public schools. 

 If it does not seem to Mrs. Hunt, as it does 



to me, obviously undesirable and improper to 

 require such teaching of children in the 

 primary and kindergarten grades, then I fear 

 that nothing that I can do is likely to bring 

 us into agreement. 



Mrs. Hunt has much to say about 'organ- 

 ized motherhood,' by which she seems to mean 

 the so-called 'consecrated women' in the Wo- 

 man's Christian Temperance Union, and her 

 letter may give the impression that it is not 

 she but they, who have been chiefly instru- 

 mental in the text-book movement, etc., es- 

 pecially as she affirms, 'I make no apology for 

 its being my good fortune to have been thus 

 oiEcially appointed.' 



Although it is difficult to discover from the 

 context to what exactly she was thus 'ap- 

 pointed,' a reference to Mrs. Hunt's quasi- 

 historical docimaents cited in my Chicago ad- 

 dress, and entitled 'An Epoch of the Nine- 

 teenth Century,' and 'A Brief History of the 

 First Decade,' throws light upon this some- 

 what obscure statement; for upon page 6 of 

 each of these documents Mrs. Hunt states that 

 the 'Woman's Christian Temperance Union 

 was organized in 1874,' and "In the autumn 

 of 1879 I carried to the annual national 

 convention of the Woman's Christian Tem- 

 perance Union in session in Indianapolis, 

 Indiana, what the Quakers would call 'my 

 concern,' for thorough text-book study of sci- 

 entific temperance in public schools as a pre- 

 ventive against intemperance. * * * A stand- 

 ing committee, of which I was made chair- 

 man, was chosen. * * * 



"The idea of scientific temperance instruc- 

 tion as a part of the regular course of study 

 in public schools was thus adopted by an or- 

 ganization [the Woman's Christian Temper- 

 ance Union]. * * * Resolutions were passed 

 and action taken which resulted in 1880 in the 

 ci'eation by that organization of a department 

 to work for scientific temperance instruction 

 \n public schools and colleges, of which de- 

 partment I was made superintendent. * * * 



"While this new affiliation brought neither 

 help in methods nor the financial aid greatly 

 needed for the execution of plans, it did fur- 

 nish what was still more necessary, an earnest, 

 enthusiastic clientage of active loyal Chris- 



