Page 10 Advertisements Column 1

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19436, 23 October 1925, Page 10

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School Teachers Ask FOR PROHIBITION The New Zealand Educational Institute has made the most important decision ever made in the history of this country bv a purely Secular institution—it has decided in the interests of the children, and of education, to ally itself with the forces who are working for the abolition of the Liquor Traffic in New Zealand. On the front cover of the October issue of “ National Education,” the official journal of the New Zealand Educational Institute, appear the lines: — Education and Liquor Traffic: Great Social Service at Stake .And on the editorial page appears the following striking declaration of faith, published in full. A Social Question “ Within the space of the next few weeks or so the electors of this country will have another opportunity of deciding for themselves the question of the continued existence of the Liquor Traffic. We are not particularly interested in the arguments for and against, which have been set out by the official protagonists of Prohibition on the one hand and the liquor interests on the other. In this connection, we would suggest to our readers that they follow our example and consider the question from the point of view of the educationist. “The work of education is a highly valuable department of social service, and those engaged in the work are bound, if they think seriously at all about it, to examine the nature and effect of anv condition or set of conditions which may touch that work at any point. Large classes, defective schools, malnutrition, a parsimonious Dolicv of expenditure on education, are topics which have engaged, and are still engaging, the active interest of educationists. They, with other evils, are obstacles in the path of progress in the raising of the general standard of our national citizenship. Anything, in short, which seems likely to influence in one wav or another the task of the educationist is a legitimate object for his attention Considered from this point of view, therefore, such social questions as the liquor traffic, gambling, and sex hygiene logically and inevitably enter the province of the teacher. “ In this article we propose to consider the responsibility and attitude of the teaching profession towards the liquor traffic. It is a responsibility from which we can see no escape, and an attitude which, in our strong opinion, ought to be clearly defined. Ihe responsibility and attitude of the individual in his personal capacity is a matter of private conscience, the free exercise of which is an unasailable light. « We can deny to no man the right to vote for or against the liquor traffic, but the corporate social service, of which he is a member, is in a different category. Its corporate activities are of a public character, and the exercise of its corporate conscience in the determination of its attitude on any particular public question is a public act, m the performance of which its motives should be well defined. “ No public question affecting the present condition or future advancement of society ” (affirms the Tenth Plank of the platform of the New Zealand Educational Institute), “can be settled satisfactorily without consideration of the effect of that settlement upon the children of the nation.” “If then we are to consider the interests of the children In this particular matter, our responsibility is perfectly clear—we are bound to assist, in every way possible, the efforts of those who are striving to abolish the liquor traffic. Prohibition to some may appear to be illogical and, educationally speaking, unscientific, but we must remember that all highly-civilised communities have to submit, in the interests of the whole, to some kind or other of multifarious prohibitions. The edict, “ Thou shalt not,” ranges down the whole social gamut from killing to buying cigarettes after seven o’clock. Prohibitory edicts at their very worst, are merely social expedients for securing iustice to the whole or a part of the community. Once upon a time is was possible for a man to go on drinking in a public bar up till eleven o’clock at night. As a matter of social expediency the hour was changed to ten o’clock, and then to six o'clock. I “ In the interests of society, and especially in the interests of children, we hope it will I soon be possible to close the doors of the bars altogether, and forever. There are so manv and good, things that can be gained for society with the money which is at present poured down human throats for no earthly reason than mere selfish pleasure, that it should not be difficult for those who are really sincere about the welfare of the nation to vote out the liquor traffic. Liquor is wasteful, unnecessary, a corrupting influence in business and politics, a spoiler of homes, and a wrecker of careers, an unmitigated nuisance all round. As a medical agent its utility is arguable, but giving that in, there is no other justification for its presence in the country. Finally, it is education's worst enemy.” VOTE OUT “Education’s Worst Enemy” O STRIKE OUT the I 2 I W>B (w Si HP B • Hs I sote for National li Zji dUr Lines *-■ “ Cut this out and keep it by you