cess

CHAPTER XV.

EDUCATIONAL FORCES.

The Policy of Prevention -- Education of the Child the Secret of SucRescue the Drunkard; but Educate the Child - Home the Primary Field of Action- The Church Work of Education -- The Public Schools and Scientific Instruction Temperance Education Law"-The Bill for National Aid to Education-Its Principles Stated-Its Bearing on the Temperance Work-Testimony of Public Men to its Merits and Importance.

IN

N the last chapter the ground is taken that the temperance reform must be incomplete until total abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage is the rule of the individual and of society; that any use of a poison, save as a medicine, is necessarily hurtful, and therefore, when used with knowledge of its character, is morally as well as physically wrong; that nothing can be morally right the indulgence in which is known to be injurious either to the individual or to society, which is only the aggregation of individuals. The fact that the injury is in many cases slight, while it may raise the question of degree, does not affect the quality of the action. Questions of right and wrong cannot be determined by geometry, nor with the most improved style of Fairbanks' scales. They belong to the court of conscience, and that court, and no other, has ultimate jurisdiction of the temperance reform. Questions of expediency may arise as to the form and degree of interference by law, and by other methods, with the traffic; but they must all be decided by the test of conscience, with a view to the adoption of the means and the policy which shall soonest remove the evil and the sin from among men. In this chapter I wish to call attention to some of the means to be employed, and their application, to secure the extinction of the traffic in strong drink.

Since the community is made up of those who do, and of those who do not, use alcoholic liquors, it is obvious that effort must be applied to the cure of those who are sick, and

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the preservation of the health of those who are well, — in other words, to prevention and cure. The most natural and effective and easily available of all means which can be employed, is the prevention of the manufacture and distribution, by wielding the strong right arm of society the law. But a strange mental infatuation has for ages been upon the mind of civilized man, and, while he would put out a conflagration by instinct, he has not only permitted, but has even kindled, fed and protected the flames of alcohol, lighted from the infernal pit, by the forces of positive law. Of this, however, more hereafter.

All possible effort should be put forth to save the drunkard which does not divert attention from the child. Compared with the child, it is of little consequence what becomes of the sot or even of the moderate drinker. Cure is the object in his case; prevention of disease, the preservation of health, and the transmission of uncontaminated life to future ages, is the great purpose in our treatment of the child.

In all past time, attention and effort have been chiefly concentrated upon the habitual consumer of liquors. This is natural, for he is the victim whose wounds and bruises and putrifying sores are constantly on exhibition. He it is who riots, murders, starves and dies to illustrate the diabolical horrors of the trade. His performances are of a character to engross our attention. And it is indispensable that these results be heeded and studied, as only in that way are we enabled to discover their cause, and thus to apply the means of cure when cure is possible, and to prevent their spread among those who are not yet infected by the plague.

I would not prevent one heart-throb, far less one single effort, for the rescue of those already in the slavery of intemperate habits. And, besides them, there is an innumerable multitude of those tempted, and occasionally indulging, who can certainly be saved. It is the highest duty to save them, and to save them all, or at least to present and press upon them the opportunity of reformation. Society, when at all aroused, is not likely to neglect this duty.

Churches and pastors, lecturers and authors, societies, and secret, and personal labor and persuasion, in every are all brought to bear, as they ought to be, upon the

RESCUE, BUT EDUCATE.

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actual consumer of intoxicating drink, that he may be saved and he is saved, sometimes. There is no trophy like these brands plucked from the burning, although they be hot generally for a while after rescue, and are too often blackened and smutty even when the fire is gone out. Compared with one solitary sheep that was lost, what are the ninety and nine who never went astray? Whose testimony is like the grateful bleating of this one "poor old wedder" (as the campmeeting hymn expresses it), as he rides triumphantly home on the Good Shepherd's back, with his eyes scratched blind, his tattered fleece full of burrs and thorns, and half his blood sucked out by the ravenous wolf? As a listener in temperance meetings, I have sometimes thought it a great thing to have been a lost sheep— provided he has also been found. But there is the rub; not one in thousands of the lost are ever brought back to the fold. No wonder that there is more joy in heaven over one such saved than over the ninety and nine who went not astray. But who can measure the good which that one rescued lost one sometimes can accomplish? Whose tale so moves and admonishes and alarms? No, it is impossible to do too much to seek and save the lost; but the highest and holiest consequence of such labor will fail unless it stimulates to the prevention of that in others which in the inebriate it is sought to cure.

The extinction of the alcoholic evil is an educational process. The temperance reform is to be successfully wrought out among the children of the rising and of coming generations. Save the children; all else is of little comparative consequence. Everything depends upon education - the training of the intellect and the heart. This fundamental process rightly accomplished, the rest follows.

Especially among a free people, whose institutions, customs and laws are fashioned by the popular will, is education the principal thing. While growth from the embryo to the perfect state is common to both, education alone creates the difference between the savage and the civilized man. In our day there is perhaps an increasing tendency to forget the preponderating importance of the moral nature, and to exalt relatively the intellectual powers; but conscience, even more than the knowing faculty, is, and always must remain, the

fundamental distinction between men and brutes. Any system of development and training which neglects the moral element in our natures, will work injury and produce dangerous wild beasts, instead of noble, wise and philanthropic citizens. And as the moral nature is the most important, so it should be earliest developed. True, that the soul and the body are a unit a strange compound of immortality and matter — and the whole develops together, but not always in due proportion; and if the moral nature be half-dormant or perverted, the mind and body are worse than lost. The first Impressions of childhood are the last which disappear with age and death; and all through life those impressions, consciously or unconsciously, fashion character and control action. Hence it is that

HOME OR THE FAMILY

is the primary educational institution of the human race. The importance of fortunate parentage and of right surroundings in the home is beyond exaggeration, and whatever assails its integrity, or impairs its harmony and efficiency as a formative and educational institution, is like the serpent in the nest of the bird.

The cruel curse of alcohol is nowhere so great as in the human home. It does in fact strike the human element out of home, and substitutes not even the instinct of beasts of prey that would be a comparative blessing but all the malignant activities of hell. The drunkard's home is hell upon earth. As I reflect upon this sentence, and hesitate to write so harshly, I deliberately leave it as it is; for it is moderate, and seems to be complete rough but true.

Recognizing the necessity of well ordered and temperate homes, all the great agencies of the temperance reform have endeavored to permeate them with restraining and elevating influences, and so upon the home have been concentrated the strongest and wisest efforts of the Church and of all reformatory organizations. But it is impossible fully to control its creation, and consequently the subsequent character of the home. The family relation is formed with so much freedom, and often with so little prudence, on the part of those who enter into it, and especially with such indifference to the

HOME THE PRIMARY FIELD.

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alcoholic habit, that multitudes of the homes and nurseries of the nation seem to have been founded only for the patronage of existing, and to propagate supporters of future saloons.

It is generally impossible to get inside the drunkard's home with good influences until it has been opened by explosions from within, and its waifs and fragments fall outcast upon society. Like everything else, the home must be made right in the first place; and so it follows that the father and mother, the original factors of the home, must themselves have been moulded by the sweet influences which in their turn they are expected to exert.

And here looms up the greater family still society itself- the community - the State. This organization exists from the very nature of things, and is no more an artificial arrangement than the primary relation of individuals for the perpetuation of the race. The "social compact" is simply a responsible but unavoidable social relation. And in this larger relation, which constitutes the highest sphere of action, the mightiest and godliest personalities engage in high endeavor, and the most benignant and efficacious labors are put forth. Here is the field of those who consecrate themselves wholly to the rescue and redemption of mankind, and, wielding institutions and inspiring all instrumentalities, endeavor to concentrate the forces of the State, of the individual and of voluntary association, upon the right education of every child, that the home of the future may be constantly and forever happy and secure. The motto of the Women's Christian Temperance Union recognizes, in fact builds itself upon, the idea of the perfect home of a home rescued if need be, but still more of a home which never has been and which never shall be lost.

"For God, for Home, and Native Land."

Home is the great primary field of action, and other fields of effort are sought with the ultimate purpose of reaching the home-if not the home of to-day and of this generation, then the home of the millions yet to be. "Native Land" will be just what Home makes it; and so, with God as their inspiration, these sacred workers strike home for Home, and by every form of educative and uplifting influence, they seek to save the child of to-day, who is the parent of to-morrow.