American Brewers and the Temperance Movement, 1903
Article from a 1903 edition of the American Brewers' Review decrying early temperance education efforts. This provides a look anti-temperance attitudes of the time before Prohibition.
From: 1903 C.E. To: 1903 C.E.
Location: Chicago, Illinois, United States
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From the American Brewers’ Review,July-Dec, 1903.
Abolish Bogus Temperance Instruction
As indicating the more rational trend of thought concerning the liquor problem, which is beginning to set in among writers in the press and speakers on the platform, it may be of interest to note the following editorial article from the Medical Journal:
“A work has been published recently, which may be said to contain the latest scientific facts bearing upon physiological aspects of the liquor problem. The work consists of investigations made by and under the direction of W. O. Atwater, John S. Billings, R. H. Chittenden, and W. H. Welch, who composed the sub-committee of the committee of 50 to investigate the liquor problem. The report on the present method of instruction regarding the physiological action of alcohol is valuable and interesting, and throws much needed light upon the mode in which this form of instruction is carried on in many parts of the United States.
The conclusion come to by the sub-committee as regards "Scientific Temperance Instruction" is that under this name "there has been grafted upon the public school system of nearly all our states an educational scheme relating to alcohol which is neither scientific, nor temperate, nor instructive. Failing to observe the distinction between the diametrically opposite conceptions of use and abuse, some of its advocates have not hesitated to teach our children that the terrible results of a prolonged abuse of alcohol may be expected to follow any departure from the strict rules of total abstinence. The success which has attended the efforts of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union to secure the desired legislation may be readily explained by the sympathy sure to be felt by all intelligent people for any sincere attempt to combat one of the most gigantic evils of modern times.
There can be no doubt that the abuse of alcohol is a threat to our civilization, and any honest effort to diminish its consumption is certain to be welcomed without any very critical examination of the methods employed. That the originators of this educational scheme were honest in their intentions there is no reason to doubt, but they have violated sound principles of pedagogy in forcing subjects upon the attention of children at an age when their minds cannot possibly be adapted to comprehend them, and have shown themselves absolutely indifferent to the demoralization of our educational system resulting from forcing teachers to give instruction in a way which their experience has shown them to be ill adapted to accomplish the ends in view, and from compelling children to memorize statements sure to be contradicted by the experience of their later lives.
Regarding them from the viewpoint of the scientist and the lover of accuracy in statement, it is to be regretted that if science be taught to children, it should not deal with absolute facts. The kind of scientific instruction which children are given in the public schools of the United States is intended rather as a means of fighting the curse of alcoholism than for the purpose of providing valuable mental pabulum. The ambition to check the evils of drink is a laudable one, but the methods adopted to reach this result are at least open to criticism.”
At the same time there is found in the Journal, of Columbus, O., an editorial which deals still more with the injurious educational effect of false temperance instruction with which the school-books all over the country are filled. This article reads as follows:
“Dr. George W. Deem of Hilliards made a good point in his recent address before the Franklin County Teachers' institute, when he declared that the courses in scientific temperance as taught in many of our public schools often defeat their own worthy object. As Dr. Deem said, the reason for this state of things is found in the tendency of textbooks and teachers to exaggerate the evil of the use of alcoholic stimulants and narcotics. Children are not fools. When they are told that every man who once tastes liquor goes through life a broken-down cripple in mind and body, they know that it is false, and the natural reaction leads them to believe that alcohol may be used with no deleterious effects at all.
One of the textbooks on hygiene states that one drop of nicotine placed on a dog's tongue causes the instant death of the dog, and that every time a man smokes a cigar he takes into his system three large drops of nicotine. The child may know that his father smokes a dozen cigars a day and still continues to live. Such statements as to the deadly effect of tobacco set him to thinking, and he is forced to the conclusion that what he learns in school is false. The resultant danger is that he will believe nothing his well-meaning teacher tells him.
Nothing is gained and much is lost by deceiving children. A plain and truthful statement of the evil effects of bad habits is far more powerful than an exaggerated one in shaping character.”
It may be added that as far as the effect upon the minds of children is concerned, it makes very little difference whether a false statement is made in good faith or with deliberate intent to deceive. It is a well-known fact that it is psychologically impossible for a fanatic to tell the truth with respect to the subject with which his fanaticism is concerned. If he could tell the truth about it he could not be a fanatic, as fanaticism is based upon an attitude of mind which sees only one side of a question, and is utterly incapable of admitting the possibility of an honest difference of opinion on the subject.
Probably the greatest harm and suffering has been inflicted upon the human race by people who meant well, and as far as the consequences are concerned it is more dangerous for legislatures to allow themselves to be influenced by well-meaning fanatics than to listen to suggestions from any other source. The so-called "temperance instruction" in our school-books has probably had a profoundly demoralizing effect upon both scholars and teachers. The scholars have been compelled to study matter which in a great many cases they knew to be false, and teachers have been forced into work in which they did not believe, and have learned to do their work in a half-hearted, spiritless manner.
Now that competent scientific authority, which was in part, at least, by no means predisposed in favor of the use of alcoholic beverages, had demonstrated the utter falsity of this so-called "temperance instruction", it seems the legislatures of the various states where such instruction prevails, should hasten to repeal all legislation which compelled the introduction of these studies in our schools.
Wahl, Arnold Spencer, Robert Wahl, and United States Brewers' Association. American Brewers' Review. Chicago: Der Braumeister Pub. Co., July-Dec 1903.
About TOTA
TOTA.world provides cultural information and sharing across the world to help you explore your Family’s Cultural History and create deep connections with the lives and cultures of your ancestors.
