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Scientific Temperance Instruction in the Schools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Norton Mezvinsky
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Extract

In a noteworthy address delivered to the Fulton County, New York, Teachers' Institute in 1869, Miss Julia Colman, a temperance writer, stressed the need for school temperance instruction. During the next few years other spokesmen made similar appeals, and in 1873 the National Temperance Society officially advocated the introduction into public and private schools of a physiology textbook that would discuss the origin, nature, and effects upon the human system of alcohol. Between 1874 and 1878 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) actively attempted to further the scientific temperance campaign by creating numerous departments and committees of work. Not until Mrs. Mary Hanchett Hunt assumed leadership, however, did the campaign receive disciplined direction.

Type
Research Article
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 1 , Issue 1 , March 1961 , pp. 48 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © 1961, University of Pittsburgh Press 

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References

Notes

1. Journal of the Proceedings and Addresses of the National Educational Association (NEA), 1886, 81.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., 82.Google Scholar

3. See minutes of the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union (NWCTU), 1874, 25; 1889, 53.Google Scholar

4. This writer's biographical essay of Mrs. Hunt, containing additional information, will appear in the forthcoming Notable American Women, 1607–1950, A Biographical Dictionary, to be published by Radcliffe College.Google Scholar

5. Minutes of the NWCTU, 1879, 112–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Ibid., 1880, 29.Google Scholar

7. Ibid., 1881, i–iv; NEA Proceedings, 1886, 84.Google Scholar

8. Minutes of the NWCTU, 41.Google Scholar

9. Hunt, Mary H., An Epoch of the Nineteenth Century (Boston: Foster, 1907), 37.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., 19.Google Scholar

11. NEA Proceedings, 1886, 89, 97.Google Scholar

12. Ibid., 189.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., 103; Hunt, Epoch, 19; Emma L. Transeau, “The Development of the Text-Book,” Union Signal, LVI (June 21, 1930), 19.Google Scholar

14. See Leigh Colvin, David, A History of the Prohibition Party and of the Prohibition Movement (New York: Doran, 1920), 178–179.Google Scholar

15. NEA Proceedings, 1886, 100.Google Scholar

16. U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. XXIV, 69; Senate Reports, 49th Congress, 1 Session, Vol. I, No. 85.Google Scholar

17. Congressional Record, 49th Congress, 1 Session, Vol. 17, pt. 1, p. 1084; Rt. 3, p. 2480.Google Scholar

18. Hunt, See, Epoch, 15.Google Scholar

19. Congressional Record, op. cit., pt. 5, p. 4603.Google Scholar

20. Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1889–1890, II, 714.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., 1901–1902, I, 319.Google Scholar

22. Hunt, , Epoch, 23.Google Scholar

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24. Report, Comm. of Ed., 1901–1902, I, 325.Google Scholar

25. Hunt, , Epoch, 24.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., 26.Google Scholar

27. Ibid., 29.Google Scholar

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29. The most conspicuous example was Connecticut. See Report, Comm. of Ed., 1900–1901, I, 1037, 1039; “Temperance Teaching and Recent Legislation in Connecticut,” Educational Review, XXIII (March, 1901), 233.Google Scholar

30. The NEA passed resolutions to this effect in 1880, 1884, 1900, and 1901. See NEA Proceedings, 1880, 157; 1884, 15; 1900, 187; 1901, 193.Google Scholar

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35. Hunt, See, Epoch, 6.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., 42; Report, Comm. of Ed., 1889–1890, II, 698.Google Scholar

37. Hunt, , Epoch, 49.Google Scholar

38. Ibid., 68.Google Scholar

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40. NEA Proceedings, 1900, 246.Google Scholar

41. Bowditch, and Hodge, , op. cit., 34.Google Scholar

42. Report, Comm. of Ed., 1892–1893, I, 540; 1904, I, 611.Google Scholar

43. See Minutes of the NWCTU, 1900, 215; (Editorial), Science, X (July 29, 1887), 49; XIII (July, 1887), 1–2; (Editorial), Popular Science Monthly, XXV (August, 1884), 555; XXXVI (Oct. 2, 1887), 3; “The Temperance Textbooks,” Outlook, LXVI (Nov. 17, 1900), 708.Google Scholar

44. Hunt, , Epoch, 51; Henry Sabin, “Scientific Temperance Instruction,” Education, XX (May, 1900), 532.Google Scholar

45. Bowditch, and Hodge, , loc. cit. Google Scholar

46. Hunt, , Epoch, 31, 52–53.Google Scholar

47. Hunt, Mary H., Reply to the Physiological Sub-Committee of the Committee of Fifty (Washington, D. C, U. S. Government, 1904).Google Scholar

48. Minutes of the NWCTU, 1907, 79, 118, 238–239.Google Scholar

49. See Ormond, Charl, Temperance Education in American Public Schools (Westerville, Ohio: American Issue, 1929), 11.Google Scholar

50. See the statistical analysis in the Anti-Saloon League Yearbook, 1913, 17. The drinking habits of the immigrants during those years was responsible for only a part of the increase.Google Scholar