1883.

THREE STATES UNDER TEMPERANCE EDUCATION LAWS AND OUR FIRST PUBLISHERS.

This year the Michigan and New Hampshire Woman's Christian Temperance Unions followed the example of Vermont and united with the National Superintendent in campaigns for this legislation. In both States the laws we asked for were enacted by the people through their representatives.

TEXT-BOOKS.

The laws of these States did not go into force for a year, but even then there were no text-books ready. Publishers and authors were slow to believe there would be a permanent market for this kind of literature, "Didn't believe the laws would be enforced," etc. Vigorous efforts to secure suitable text-books had thus far failed. Dr. Richardson's "Temperance Lesson-Book" proved too technical for common school use, and like Miss Coleman's book, contained only temperance matter, no physiology or other hygiene which the law demanded.

At

But each failure was only paving the way for ultimate success. this juncture when authors and publishers had promised and failed, and there was no hope for the needed books except to the eye of faith, Mr. Pearsall Smith, of Philadelphia, introduced me to the well-known publisher, Mr. A. S. Barnes of New York City. That philanthropic, Christian gentleman replied:

"Your proposition to prevent intemperance with a temperance education for the rising generation is certainly reasonable. It may not amount to much as a business investment to publish such books, but I will introduce the subject to my sons, who are now the active men of this firm, with a favorable recommendation. It will be doing good at least."

We thus found our first publishers. They introduced me to Dr. Steele, who subsequently wrote the first book endorsed by this Department.

1884.

THE EMPIRE STATE GIVES MOMENTUM TO THE MOVEMENT: FIVE STATES UNDER TEMPERANCE EDUCATION LAWS.

The following extracts from the annual report of this year tell the story: "A wise general in planning a conquest aims at strategic points. The children and youth of the whole people, as we find them in the schools and educational institutions of the entire country, are the field to be secured by this department for Temperance education.

Its strategic points one year ago to the vision of your National Superintendent were, first, New York State with its five millions and more people, and next, Pennsylvania with her four millions. If these great centres of population could be carried, other smaller States would, with less labor, fall into line.

The

For two years this irresistible, haunting conviction followed me. difficulties in the way only intensified the conviction and the desire to match obstacles with efforts to overcome them. To the universal assurance that it was useless to try to get a Compulsory Temperance Education Law from a New York Legislature, the Superintendent of this Department heard always, in the depths of her soul, but one answer, and that the command, 6 Go forward.'

The campaign was systematically planned and executed. Earnest appeals from platform, press and prayer-meeting among the constituencies back of every vote created the sentiment that echoed in the final "ay' ay' that enacted the law.

The passage of such a law by that State is the crowning victory of the year now closed, and a culminating point in our four years' struggle since the formation of the Department.

RHODE ISLAND,

with no special pressure of the people brought to bear upon the Legislature, as in other States, quickly followed New York in the passage of a similar law last April."

From the same report the following is clipped:

TEXT-BOOKS.

"Upon this Department devolves the duty of providing suitable textbooks on Physiology and Hygiene, with special reference to alcoholic drinks and other narcotics, for all pupils in all schools,' and also the further responsibility indicated in the following extract from The Union Signal:

"DEAR EDITOR:-Please state to our friends that any endorsement of scientific text-books for the Temperance education contemplated by Mrs. Hunt's Department must have her signature to be satisfactory to the National W. C. T. U. I shall henceforth commend no book of this class until I have consulted with Mrs. Hunt, for we must all 'pull together' in this matter or we shall fail to 'get the best.'

FRANCES E. WILLARD."

If all pupils in all schools are taught, a series of at least three text-books, one each for high, intermediate and primary grades of schools is demanded, and four for schools closely graded. In the judgment of the friends of this movement it was deemed best that these books should be issued by regular school-book publishing houses, as no temperance publication society would be able to compete with these. The story of the search for publishers, of the wider one for authors, of the disappointments of authors of manuscripts rejected because unsuitable, of the wrath of publishers whose books could not be endorsed, of the critics, some wise and some otherwise, of the heavy burden of expense which all this has brought upon your National Superintendent, and much more that has come into this experience, would form an almost tragic_chapter.

As results, we present you, now ready for school use, the Hygienic Physiology, by Prof. J. Dorman Steele, endorsed by your National Superintendent, for Normal and High schools, and Hygiene for Young People, for intermediate grades, prepared under the direction of this Department, and of Prof. A. B. Palmer, M. D., LL. D., Dean of the Medical Department of the University of Michigan.

The book for primary grades is, we regret to say, not yet ready, but promised soon. The almost insurmountable obstacles in the way to be overcome is our only apology.

PUBLISHERS RUSHING TO MARKET.

"Large numbers of publishers and authors have rushed into our field with books containing the old and disproven theories concerning alcohol, badly arranged and badly graded, and otherwise inadequate to the demands of the laws and the needs of the schools. These works are defective in their treatment of alcohol, and have not the proportion or arrangement of Temperance matter that is intended by the spirit and letter of this legislation."

ANOTHER SECRETARY.

"The arrangement of details of campaign work for New York and other States has filled the time of the Secretary of this department, Mrs. C. C. Alford. Anything like a fair record of the self-denying labors of this earnest worker for the cause would more than fill the space allotted to this report. The increasing correspondence of the department demanded the addition of a second Secretary, Mrs. L. S. Tobey, whose entire time since June has been given to answering the thousands of letters that reach headquarters from all parts of the country."

THE SCHOOL-HOUSE THE HOPE OF THE TEMPERANCE REFORM.

"We close this year with the expectation of Temperance people, as never before, turned toward the school-house as the hope of this reform, with nearly every State and Territory that has not the law, desiring and planning to work for it, and with unabated conviction that in this is the morning of the day when alcohol as a beverage shall be only a thing of history."

1885.

OUR STRATEGIC POINTS WON: TEN NEW STATES, FIFTEEN IN ALL, AND A GRADED SERIES OF TEXT-BOOKS.

PROPHECY FULFILLED.

The opinion given in the report of the preceding year as to the strategic importance of the New York campaign in influencing the action of other States reads like prophecy in the light of the history of the succeeding year. The report of this year says:

"Ten States have, during the last twelve months, followed the example of the great Empire State, in making, by legislative act, the study of physiological temperance a part of the required course of instruction in their public schools These States are Alabama, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oregon, Nevada, Maine, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.'

THE PASSAGE OF THE PENNSYLVANIA LAW.

The great event of this year was the passage of the Pennsylvania law. our second strategic point in the effort to carry the whole country for temperance education in the public schools. It was one of the most difficult states to carry because of its size and vast foreign population. The campaign was exhaustive in its plan, scope and execution. It was the first law to which a definite penalty was attached and which discriminated against the defective temperance text-books, and hence an intense and varied opposition had to be encountered and overcome. Mrs. Jos. D. Weeks, the able state superintendent of this work at that time, says in her report: "With the continually changing aspect of affairs in the legislature, requiring often an immediate and entire change of tactics, no one, outside the central figures in the campaign, can appreciate the nervous strain, the bodily fatigue and the mental tax that had to be borne. We seemed to live at the key of a telegraphic instrument during many weeks."

The following newspaper account of the stirring scene in the legislature at the second reading of the bill, with a brief sketch of preliminary work, was written at the time by Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickenson :

REPORT OF AN EYE-WITNESS.

As the work of widening the temperance sentiment goes on, we come, now and then, would that it were more frequently, to places where the only thing to do seems to be to raise an Ebenezer, and the only thing to say is, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." Hitherto, even in Penn

sylvania, after stations marked by stones of praise in Vermont, in Michigan, in New Hampshire, in New York, Rhode Island, and Alabama, has come the triumphant temperance law that gives the children of the Keystone State the knowledge that, under God, shall mean to them warning, and protection, and moral force, and dominion over self, and freedom from the demoralization and degradation of drink.

Hitherto, after nearly eighteen months of praying and planning on the part of the W. C. T. U. women of Pennsylvania, after single and united personal endeavor, after stimulating every force at their command, after such sacrifices of time, and strength and means in order to carry on the campaign as would make a stirring and pathetic history, hitherto the law has come.

Upon this great tide of womanly support, that buoyed her up on wave after wave of prayer, and of faith in her powers, has the leader of this work been borne from city to city, like a brave ship laden with a treasure of knowledge and blessing to be spread out before the listening people. Everywhere it has been a triumphant journey, winning the reluctant, convincing the prejudiced, enlightening the ignorant. Does anybody doubt it? "By their fruits ye shall know them," and the fruits are here before us in the legislative hall where I sit and note with my pencil the men who one after another leave their seats and saunter up here to the gallery and say their word of respectful congratulation and give their tribute of manly esteem to the woman who, as they say, convinced their judgment, or enlightened their consciences, or enlisted their hearts. It is triumph today for the superintendent of scientific instruction, but triumph at no small cost, if one may judge from the weariness of her face that bears the mark of many journeyings and exhausting labors and no little conflict of brain and travail of soul.

Last evening, while the electric lights made the imposing outlines of the capitol stand out vividly above the darkness of the city, a throng of pe p'e came up through the crisp cold of the wintry night, to hear Mrs. Hunt's last address before the members of the legislature. They filled the galleries, and overflowed into the aisles, and many a courteous legislator kindly made room for strangers by vacating his seat.

Upon the free and easy bustle of preliminary movement and chat that marks even the gatherings of great men, the gavel fell sharply, and the house dropped into comparative quiet. A short prayer by Rev. Mr. Chamberlain of Harrisburg, then, gently and easily, as if this was a country school and these lawmakers so many big boys bound to loyalty and service, Mrs. Hunt began to talk. From my corner behind the gathering of representative women who had come on from Philadelphia. and elsewhere to be present on this occasion, I saw not only the thoughtful and pleased attention of the majority, but that the fidgety man ceased to fidget, the dogged man, who deliberately opened his newspaper, soon dropped it on the floor at his side; the man who flung himself into his seat with an air of dry endurance took an attitude of roused attention, the loungers sat up erect, and even the man who defiantly