ALCOHOLOGY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 239, 14 February 1911, Page 3

ALCOHOLOGY.

IN THIS schools. • (Published'by Arrangement). Renders of the ''Daily News" will have noticed in the report of the last meeting of the Education Board that the Education, Department is taking up the question,<>f teaching'the children the propel place for all'alcoholic, liquors.' Hitherto the school syllabus has given very littlo place for such teaching. The most it said was under the headings of ''Moral instruction" or "Health," and then only in commending ''temperance in' eating and drinking," or "tile avoidance of evil and unhealthy habits." To .this of late there has been added a few articles in the School Journal dealing with the evil cllccts of alcohol Anyone iiearin" all the talk and fuss a!>ont training children for their life-wont would certainly expect'that there would be some .teaching on a'question of such importance as tire right place, and proper use, of alcohol. But ' while the syllabus discourses on keeping the teeth clean, "the choice of amusements," '.'good manners," and "civic duties," it utterly fails to give any indication as to how alcohol should be used or avoided. 'lf teetotallers are wrong in saying that total abstinence from alcohol is the only safe and wise plan, then the scholars should be shown, where the error lies ; and if, on the'other hand, they be right, surely the matter;is of sn'llicient. moment to have a place in our school curriculum. They give 'technical instruction for those who' would be workers on the land, or in wood, or iron, or dress making; and yet the way to take the I>est care of the health, and to he most, lit physically and mentally for service in every calling in life i= totally ignored. .We'are glad to see that there is a move in the : right direction at last.

TEMPERANCE WALL SHEETS are being prepared by the Department, and a specimen copy of No. 1 ha- been sent lo the TaraniiKi Board., So far this miniliei' goes it is very moderate indeed; it follows very much the lines of the English ''Syllabus of Lessons on Temperance for Scholars attending' Public Elementary Schools," which was, issued in June,- 1909, and is now generally adopted by education boards in that country. These wall sheets are not yet completed, but when ready copies will be supplied to all schools in the Dominion: No.- I, for, the . juniors, is mainly physical and shows the danger there is a using alcoholic beverages; Jsos. 2 and 3 deal with the social and economic and moral benefits of abstinence. The Department is to be commended for at last taking up this important subject, and it will now lie the duty of the boards to see that the instruction is rivilly given; moreover, committees and parents can inspect I he-e sheets, and thev, too. mar profit thereby. It is wonderful how the world is coining round to find out. that

WINE IS A MOCKER. Why, even Sir James Crichton Browne. M.!)., who is not at all an advocate of temperance—in fact, he is a thorn in the side of teetotallers—says that no one should use alcohol until 25 years of age; and the reason is that the drug is dangerous to growing cells, and the brain has not completed its' growth until that age. There is one thing about this temperance wall sheet which is not satisfactory, it snys, what everyone knows, that too much alcohol is very bad; but it leaves the teacher and tile scholar to draw the inference that if a thing i- dangerous and also really unnecessary—can be done wftnout—that the only safe and wise plan.is to have nothing at all to do with it.