JUBILEE OF THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE LEAGUE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43118, 25 July 1907, Page 1

JUBILEE OF THE NATIONAL TEMPERANCE LEAGUE.

The National Temperance League, whose Jubilee will be celebrated in London by a series of interesting meetings between Sundays, October 21st and 28th, is an organisation devoted to the educational and scientific aspects of, the temperance movel' merit. Its chief feature has been to endeavour to influence certain classes of the community which, in their turn, are able to exert special influence upon the public generally. In accordance with this method the League in the early sixties commenced a systematic campaign, with a view to arousing the Christian church to a sense of its responsibility in regard to the national in temper* ance. The circulation ,of ten thousand clergy of a remarkable book, “Haste to the. Rescue,’* ) by the late Mrs Wight man, wife of the rector of St. Aik* mund’s, Shrewsbury, iuitiated a movement from which sprang the Church of England Temperance Society. Similar appeals, combined with conferences at - their annual assemblies led * to the formation of temperance committees and associations in the Baptist, Congregational, Wesleyan and Presbyterian bodies.

Temperance teaching in the school was commenced as far back as 1862, when the League’s scientific lecturer gave the first addresses illustrated by chemical experiments to scholars in the London elementary schools. For nearly forty years the League has held aunual conferences with

the members of the National Union of Teachers, and other* wise influenced the scholastic profession ; thus preparing the way for the introduction of the teaching of hygiene and temperance, for'which so strong a call is now being made by the medical profession - -upon the educational authorities. The present attitude of the i medical profession toward > temperance teaching in th • : schools, as well as towards th* ! use of alcohhl iu health and disease, is very largely the outcome of the eff arts of the League to encourage the study of the subject. The first meeting of medical men, held in the year 1862, was attended by fificen ; the latest of the 37 annual conferences which have been held in the British Medical Association’s meetings was attended by some four hundred medical men. The arrangements by the Leagu > of the late Sir Benjamin Ward jßichardsotrs (t Cantor ” lectures on alcohol, at the Society of Arts, and the research attending thereon, prepared the way for that more scientific study which has led to the definite conclusions now held by the medical profession.

Early in its history the League came into contact with National Services; an agent being appointed in the year 1859 to work among the soldiers at Aldershot. This small beginning grew by the co operation of column ding officers until branches of the League, were formed in most of (he principal garrisons. A temperance canteen at the autumn manoeuvres at Dartmoor and Cannock Chase in 1873 received the hearty approval of the then Commander-in Chief, the late Duke of Cambridge, and led to great changes in the army cornea issariat department. Tim tern porance work in the Indian army was assisted in its early days by the League, which took part with the Church of Eng* land Temperance Society and the late Chaplain-General (Dr. Edghill) in forming what is now known as the Royal Temperance Association.. A