Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/384

352 we might overlook their less desirable results. But the youth can not be made virtuous by sentimental gush nor by scientific bug-a-boos. Just in proportion to his ignorance of the subject will be the teacher's willingness to undertake the teaching proposed by the New York law. Hence arise the penalties laid on teachers and trustees, a thing unheard of in relation to any study that justifies itself.

As already stated, it is evident that the value of the study of physiology is weakened or destroyed by neglecting its scientific aspects and by throwing its conclusions out of perspective. We might as well ask that our histories of the United States should devote a fifth of each chapter to the effect of the spoils system on the events described. The spoils system is to our politics what alcohol is to our bodies, and a wonderful field would be open to reformers if their doctrines could be forced into all historical text-books. And if one class of reformers is admitted, there would be room for many others. It will not be long before we hear from the Baking Powder people, while the manufacturers of oleomargarine will claim the ear of the schools for their product, which is free from the microbes of tuberculosis that infest the dairies. In so far as science yields the basis for any class of reforms, let the facts be known. But these demands should stand in clear relation to the facts on which they depend. Injunctions to temperance may be derived from scientific knowledge; but science should not be distorted for purposes of argument. Confusion and verbiage add nothing, and the teaching of positive untruths works constant injury to the cause of education.

The success of "scientific temperance" legislation, in spite of the combined protest of all intelligent teachers, is really not surprising. It is pressed mainly by committees of women, and by women who are very much in earnest. Politicians are always glad to humor women when a sop like this will serve to do so. So long as nothing substantial is asked for they are wonderfully complaisant. The mercantile interests have no objection to laws of this sort, which can in no way harm the liquor traffic either present or future. If the temperance movement spent itself in such ways only, it could count on the help of its enemies. The opposition to "scientific temperance" comes mainly from theorists who regard meddling of this kind as outside the province of good government, and from teachers who know by experience that text-book virtue enforced by penalties works only mischief in the schools. The more stringent the penalties on teachers and school officers, the more certainly do such influences fail as agents for good.

The whole matter has been thus strongly stated by Dr. J. G. Schurman, President of Cornell University, referring to the New