chool hygiene is
illustrated by a recent book which, for the most part, successfully
breaks away from the narrow point of view and the crude methods
hitherto prevailing. It presents the following facts concerning New
York City:

Saloons 10,821
Arrests 133,749
Expense of police department $10,199,206
Police courts, jails, workhouses, reformatories 1,310,411
Hospitals, asylums, and other charities 4,754,380

It is fair to the author to state that she does not declare in so many
words that the shutting up of the saloons would obviate all the arrests
and all the hospital, jail, and charity bills. Instead of _wipe out_
she says _shrivel_. No truth would have been lost by avoiding all
misrepresentation.

The author probably felt as I did when I took my total abstainer's
protest to a celebrated scientist who had exposed certain misstatements
regarding the effect of small quantities of alcohol: "Is not the
untruth of these exaggerated statements less dangerous than the untruth
of dispassionate, scientific statement? So long as the child mind takes
in only an impression, is it not better to write this impression
indelibly?" He sadly but indulgently replied, "And in what other
studies would you substitute exaggeration for truth?"

The reaction has already begun against exaggeration in hygiene
text-books, against drawing lessons from accidental or exceptional
cases of excessive use of alcohol, against classing moderate drinking
and smoking with drunkenness as sins of equal magnitude, and against
overlooking grave social and industrial evils that threaten children
far earlier and more frequently than do tobacco and alcohol. Instead of
adding an ell to the truth, text-book writers are now adding only an
inch or two at a time. No longer do we favor highly colored charts that
picture in purple, green, and black the effect of stimulants and
narcotics upon the heart and brain, the stomach, the liver, the knee,
and the eardrum, _assuming that all resultant evils are concentrated in
one organ_. Menacing habits, such as overeating and indulgence in
self-pity, are beginning to receive attention. It is also true that
physiology and anatomy are progressively made more interesting.
Publishers are looking for the utmost originality compatible with the
purpose of the present laws and with the only effec