The textbooks endorsed by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) were highly criticized. They were filled with distortions and falsehoods. They all had to be approved by Mary Hunt. And she insisted on what she called Scientific Temperance Instruction or STI.  It was anything but scientific.

Leading scientists and educators were concerned about Scientific Temperance Instruction. This included the presidents of Columbia, Cornell, Yale, Stanford, and Vassar.¹ As a result, STI was evaluated.

Scientific Temperance Instruction

The Committee of Fifty

The prestigious Committee of Fifty was a group of leading scholars formed in 1893 to study the “liquor problem.”² It sought to determine facts rather than promote any point of view.³ STI was evaluated by a subcommittee acting for the Committee of Fifty.

The subcommittee was headed by faculty from Harvard and Clark Universities. It found the WCTU’s program of temperance instruction seriously defective. The subcommittee contended that children should not be taught and forced to memorize “facts.” So-called facts that they would later find to be false. It said this approach was doomed to backfire.

The subcommittee acted for the entire Committee of Fifty. That Committee later reviewed and accepted its findings. Therefore, the subcommittee will be referred to as the Committee. Because of his stature as a leading physician, Dr. John S. Billings authored and edited three volumes of reports.

Misleading “Facts”

Stating “Alcohol is a colorless liquid poison,” the WCTU-approved textbooks conveyed a false impression. It was that alcohol is poison in any amount. The WCTU also said that is always harmful.⁴

The textbooks constantly repeated the word poison.  They also made many false statements. So the approved texts attempted to mislead and frighten students into abstinence.⁵

Education vs Indoctrination

The Committee believed that instruction should be based on actual facts. That way students could form their own educated opinions. They “should not be taught that the drinking of a glass or two of wine by a grown-up person is very dangerous.”⁶

This was opposed to the view expressed by a prominent WCTU leader, Mary Hunt. She said that “To teach the danger of forming the awful, insidious, inexorable appetite [for alcohol], is the especial province of the teacher.”⁷

Hunt referred to the enormous “harvest of death that might result from the universal teaching that the drinking of one or two glasses of wine is not ‘very dangerous.'” She asserted that “such teaching would be nothing less than crime.”⁸

Contrasts

The Committee contrasted knowledge about alcohol with that taught in WCTU-approved textbooks. It did so by placing side by side passages from standard authoritative textbooks with those from “Indorsed and Approved”textbooks.⁹ (Ellipses in original.)

 Authors

One author of an approved series of textbooks remarked to the Committee. “I have studied physiology and I do not wish you to suppose that I have fallen so low as to believe all those things I have put into those books.”¹⁰ (Emphasis in original.) The author may not have fallen so low as to believe what he wrote. But he did fall low enough to put it into textbooks for young students.

Few authors were willing to damage their reputation by writing books to conform to Ms. Hunt’s strict guidelines. This is suggested by a simple fact. One-third of the approved textbooks were written anonymously.¹¹

Mary Hunt had to pay one author $6,000 to write two books. That sum of money could have built or buy a very large house at that time. And at least one of the texts “authored” by another writer has been attributed to Ms. Hunt.¹²

By her own admission¹³ the publisher had asked her either to revise them herself or to supervise the revisions. This was to bring them into conformity with her own guidelines. Mary Hunt dealt with accusations of conflict of interest in a deceitful way.¹⁴ Learn more about this at Scientific Temperance Foundation.

The Survey

The Committee did a survey of all members of the American Physiological Society (APA). It also surveyed 45 physiologists, hygienists, and specialists in allied sciences. They all held prominent positions abroad. It was to “obtain valuable expert opinions from practically the entire scientific world” about STI.¹⁵

A number of the scholars opposed drinking alcohol. Yet every respondent from the APA except one “oppose[d] the so-called ‘scientific temperance instruction’ as it is now being promoted in the schools. The strong conviction of a number being that it is resulting in more evil than good.”¹⁶ Of the foreign scientists, only one reported being in support of the approved textbooks.

“Even Forel, perhaps the most energetic and brilliant advocate of total abstinence. He goes so far as to maintain that alcohol in all doses is a poison. He remarked ‘I think that in America somewhat unwise methods have been adopted.'”¹⁷ (Emphasis in original.)

Textbooks Ideological and Propagandistic

The Committee expressed concern over the ideological and propagandistic nature of WCTU-approved textbooks. And of the STI movement.

The tendency has been to create “evidence.” And to call “scientific” everything that happens to agree with its views. To call error all the facts opposing its views. Another is flattery of authors who favor the views to be taught. The “greatest living authority,” “foremost scientist,” “author of great prominence,” “most skilled in his profession,” “eminent scholar,” etc.¹⁸ 

The WCTU and other temperance writers tended to exaggerate the stature of those who agreed with them. On the other hand, they “frequently . .. abused anyone who disagreed with them. Indeed, derogatory and vituperative language became a trademark of the temperance crusade.”¹⁹

Strong-Arm Tactics

Often, temperance activists went beyond mere words. The Committee noted “the efforts of the ‘scientific temperance’ people to secure the dismissal of state employees suspected of not being sufficiently in sympathy with their own extreme views.”²⁰ Mary Hunt “pushed the editor of a temperance newspaper to investigate those opposed to temperance instruction.”²¹

Teacher Opposition

The Committee documented “‘scientific temperance’ propaganda.”²² It then wrote “It is little wonder that educators and teachers oppose ‘scientific’ temperance.”²³ That’s because “the text-books are written with a deliberate purpose to frighten the children so thoroughly that they will avoid all contact with alcohol.”²⁴ Indeed, a “study of what children actually remembered from their classes reported one pupil’s response. Alcohol ‘will gradually eat away the flesh. If anyone drinks it, it will pickle the inside of the body.'”²⁵

The Committee carefully studied all the evidence. It concluded that regular moderate drinking did not cause health problems. That drinking did not inevitably lead to drunkenness. And that alcohol education should be based on a simple recognition. That “Intoxication is not the wine’s fault, but the man’s.”²⁶ This was clearly contrary to basic temperance beliefs.

Textbook Dishonesty

The Committee was clearly displeased about textbook dishonesty. “[T]he manner in which scientific authorities are misquoted in order to appear to furnish support to ‘scientific temperance instruction.'”²⁷ Then it reviewed the results of three studies of STI practice and outcomes. It concluded that “‘Scientific Temperance Instruction’… is neither scientific, nor temperate, nor instructive.”²⁸

STI was evaluated by leading scholars. They found it to be both misguided and counter-productive.

Mary Hunt Responded

In response, Ms. Hunt prepared a Reply to the Physiological Subcommittee of the Committee of Fifty.  In it she charged the authors of the report with being prejudice against abstinence instruction. She blasted them for [alledged] gross misrepresentation of facts. And she insisted that the WCTU-endorsed textbooks were completely accurate. Ms. Hunt had her Reply entered into the Congressional Record.²⁹ Then she had the WCTU distribute more than 100,000 copies.³⁰

The Legacy of Mary Hunt and Her Scientific Temperance Instruction

It is indisputable that “By the time of her death in 1906, Mary Hunt had shaken and changed the world of education.”³¹ Her campaign for coercive temperance education (or “institutionalized prohibitionist propaganda”)³² was highly successful.

In 1901-1902, 22 million students had received anti-alcohol education based on temperance beliefs.³³ “The WCTU was perhaps the most influential lobby ever to shape what was taught in public schools. Though it was a voluntary association, it acquired quasi-public power as a censor of textbooks, a trainer of teachers, and arbiter of morality.”³⁴

Important to 18th Amendment

Temperance writers viewed the WCTU’s program of compulsory temperance education as a major factor leading to National Prohibition.³⁵ Other knowledgeable observers agreed.

For example, the U. S. Commissioner of Education in 1920 that that National Prohibition was a major accomplishment. He thought that “the schools of the country have played a very important part, in fact probably a major part.”³⁶ And that was due to Scientific Temperance Instruction.

A study of legislative control of curricula was done in 1925. It found that teaching about temperance “is our nearest approach to a national subject of instruction. It might be called our one minimum essential.”³⁷

WCTU Control

The WCTU held a virtual monopoly over the selection of textbooks until the 1940s. It then began to have some competition from the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies.³⁸ Writing in 1961, Mezvinsky³⁹ reported this. “Some schools still stage [temperance] assemblies and meetings each year and hold WCTU essay and oratorical contests.” So-called Scientific Temperance Instruction “laid the groundwork for the formal drug education programs that remain high on the agendas of today.”⁴⁰ And some of the laws Ms. Hunt had passed still remain.⁴¹

Major Objective Achieved?

It can also be argued that compulsory STI failed to achieve its major objective of bringing about complete abstinence. Annual consumption of alcohol beverages increased between 1880 and 1920. That is, it increased between the beginning of the movement and the beginning of National Prohibition. Also, the difficulty of enforcing prohibition and its ultimate failure are important. They indicate that the instruction had not convinced enough young people to support prohibition when they became adults.⁴²

Scientific Temperance Instruction was evaluated. It failed the test. But did it fail in the long run? That’s for you to decide.

But before you do so, let’s take a look at the Temperance Movement Today.  

Resources

Readings

Reports Made for the Committee of Fifty

• • Billings, J. (Ed.) The Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem. 2 vols. (1903.)
  • Billings, J. et al.  The Liquor Problem. A Summary. (1905.)
  • Calkins, R. (1901) Substitutes for the Saloon. (1901)
  •  Koren, J. Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem.  (1899)
  • Wines, F., and Koren, J.  The Liquor Problem in Its Legislative Aspects.

Other Readings

• • Committee of Fifty. In: Cherrington, E. (Ed.) Standard Encyclopedia of the Alcohol Problem. Vol. II.
  • Falkner, R. Review of Koren, J. Economic Aspects of the Liquor Problem. Ann Am Acad Polit Soc Sci, 1899, 14(2), 97-99.
  • Hunt, M. Reply to the Physiological Subcommittee of the Committee of Fifty.
  • Levine, H. The Committee of Fifty and the origins of alcohol control. J Drug Iss, pp. 95-116.
  • Nat Lib Med. John Shaw Billings Centennial.

Endnotes

1. 1. Mezvinsky, N. Scientific Temperance Instruction in the schools. Hist Ed Q, 1, p. 52.
   2. Furnas, J. The Life and Times of the Late Demon Rum, p. 330.
   3. Billings, J. et al. The Liquor Problem, p. 4.
   4. Timberlake, J. Prohibiti on and the Progressive Movement, p. 49.
   5. The Am Alco Ed Assn would later teach that alcohol is a “protoplasm poison” (Furnas, p. 317). This description sounded more scientific.
   6. Billings, et al., 1905, pp. 35-36.
   7. Bader, R. Prohibition in Kansas, p. 100.
   8. Hunt, M. Reply to the Physiological Subcommittee of the Committee of Fifty, pp. 17-18.
   9. Billings, J. (Ed.) The Physiological Aspects of the Liquor Problem. 2 vols, 1903, pp. 11-13
   10. ______, 1903, p. 34.
   11. ______, 1903, p. 26.
   12. ALA. The National Union Catalog.  Vol. 261, p. 17.
   13. Hunt, M. An Epoch of the Nineteenth Century, p. 49.
   14.  See Note 2 below.
   15. Billings, 1903, p. 14.
   16. ______, 1903, p. 15.
   17. ______, 1903, p. 17.
   18. ______, 1903, p. 23.
   19. Isaac, P. Prohibition and Politics, p. 226.

   20. Billings, 1903, p. 25.

   21. Pauly, p. 387.
   22. Billings, 1903, p. 25.
   23. ______, 1903, p. 31.
   24. ______, 1903, p. 32.
   25. Tyack, D., and James, T. Moral majorities and the school curriculum. Teach Coll Rec, 86, pp. 518-519.
   26. Billings, et al., 1905, pp. 30, 35, 41.
   27. Billings, 1903, p. 35.
   28. _______, 1903, p. 44.
   29. Hunt, 1904, ibid.
   30. Mezvinsky, p. 184.
   31. Ohles, J. The imprimatur of Mary H.H. Hunt. J School Health, 48, p. 478.
   32. Clark, N. The Dry Years, p. 35.
   33. See Note 1 below.
   34. Tyack and James, p. 519.
   35. Cherrington, E. The Anti-Saloon League Yearbook, pp. 178-179.
   36. Timberlake, J. Prohibition and the Progressive Movement, p. 46.
   37. Tyack and James, p. 516.
   38. Mezvinsky, pp. 48-56.
   39. _________, p. 54.
   40. Erickson, J. Making King Alcohol tremble. J Drug Ed, 18, p. 333.
   41. Garcia-McDonnell, C. The Effects of the Beginning Alcohol and Addictions Basic Education Prevention Curriculum, p. 13.
   42. Mezvinsky, p. 54.

Notes

1. 1. Hunt, 1904, p. 23. Ms. Hunt asserted in 1904 (p. 3) that such education was “now mandatory in the public schools of every state in the United States, and in all schools under Federal control.” But Billings (1903, p. 100) reported that Georgia was “the only State having no law on the subject.” And Flanders (1925, p. 68) reported that “Idaho was then [1903] the only state where it [temperance instruction] was not prescribed.” But Billings (1903, p. 100) presented section eight of the relevant act, which had become Idaho law in 1899.
   2. “In order to deal with the accusation that she profited from reform, she signed over to charity the royalties due her on the thousands of physiology textbooks sold annually. Yet she believed that philanthropy began at home. Her never-publicized beneficiary was the Scientific Temperance Association. It was a group composed of Hunt, her pastor, and a few friends. The association used its funds to support the operations of the national headquarters of the WCTU’s Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction. It was a large house in Boston that was also Hunt’s residence.” (Pauly, P. The struggle for ignorance. Bull Hist Med, 64, p. 373.) For more about Ms. Hunt’s deception, see Scientific Temperance Federation.