Temperance Column

The next regular meeting of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union will be held Thursday, May 28, at three o'clock, in the Y. V. C. A. rooms over the post office. There will he 110 meeting of the Lo.yal Temperance Legión next Satnrday on account of the Choral ünion concert. One weeiv from Saturday au important business meeting1 will be held in the hall, at three o'clock. At the last meeting of the local unión nrrangeinents were made for delegates to attend the state convention which will be held in Marquette, June 12-17. Twenty-fi ve temple wheels have been sent for to finish paying the one limidred dollars, pledged by the Ann Arbor union several years ago toward the Temperance Temple fund, Chicago. These littc wheels have places ior twelve ten cent peicea, and hundreds of dollars have been raised for this noble pnrpose during the last year through the small gifts placed ia the wheels. The local VV. C. T. ü. voted at the last meeting to send money toward the support of the missionary in the lumber district in the northern part of the state, and two dollars in responses to an appeal from the National W. C. T. U. to aid in raisin,? a fund to extend organization. Miss Willard made a stirring appeal for Armenia in the Union Signal of May 7. She supplements this appeal in the Signal of May 14, and asks that as the Armenian Relief Association has a wider aiin tban simply material aid, the whiteribboners should cooperate with this society. It seems desirable that all the gifts should flow through our treasury, and organized : l 1 1 I panoplied for active work as wc are, our society can become a great system of "ways and means" for the salvation and freedom of Armenia. Miss Willard closes her appeal with these words. "The needs of Armenia require no emphasis. They cry to God day and night, and we verily have no right to cali ourselves God's children if we do not hear and heed. This is a signal opportunity to prove that the white ribbon is for all lands, and means the universal reign of peace and fraternity." Mr. J. W. Leeils has this to say in the Union Signal ubout the teaching of war in history text books: - A Bufficiently frank adraission was late.ly made by an apologist for the Boys' Brigade sclieme, that "all healthy boys have a love of soldiery born in thera, ' leaving as a not unfair inference the eoiollary that the yonth who did not cesent ati attack upon bis rights or strike back wheu assaultcd must be weak and unhealthy. It is a lamentable but natural sequence of this emulaüon of the false heroic modela found so largely in pagan classics, as eontra-distinguished from those molded upon the pure Christian type, which heretofore have been kept too much in the background, that the school history textbooks of our day are so largely what they are, a compend of the battles of ones country with a very pronouuced bias ander the label of patriotisin for "my country, right or wrong." That was, therefore, a tnuch needed testimony penned by llector Alex. Mackay-Smith in responding to an invitation to be present a the conference on international arbitration in Independenco Hall on last Washin'iton's birthday, in which he said, "Our children are nurtured on stories of British oruelty in the Itevolutiouary war; the devil, to them, has a red coat, and carnes a Queen Anue jnusket My frreat grandfather was an ofticer in that war, but I wish we could forgut the whole coulliet. My ovvn children are growingup to dislike Knjjland because of tliat old war as told in their school bcoks. It is time to stop it. Patriotisy is the noblest virtue, but it must not be uourisbed in hate. A iittle coinnioh s'iise as well as Christian charity on both sidos is needed." We have lately hád some very recent exemplificatioDS of thifi teaching of international autagonism, on the part of the lads and young men in some of the public schools, colleges and universitiesof Spain and the l'nited States respectivel.y. The Philadelphia Record tella of a small boy who made a qnantity of erayan-colored paper flajfs of Spain, whieh, in an explosión of patriotism he threw onu by one into the kitchen fire, and then "solemnly loaded his Fourth of July pisto! witta caps and fired a salute in honor of the eveut." Now the foregoing statement I horewith submit to the Woman'.s Christian Tempcrance Union for practical present use, enjoining that it bc not laid away in any "bureau" drawer, nor folded up in a napkin. The polnt U readily to be apprehended, that whereas y ou have a scientific teinperance department, whicta has succeeded in most nsefully suppleraentiug the ordinary teaching of physiology and hygiëne in the public ochools by the requireinent thatnoxious efïeetsof alcohol, narcotica and opiates be likewise fairly presented and stndied, so also should the teaching of history in wbich our children are regularly drillcd be oL a eharacter commensurate with our profeseion as ;i Christian nation. To be steeped beyond all thinfrs else in aquaintanceship with its wars and its battles, and how raany of our troops and how niany of the "enemy" were killed and wounded in this engagement and how manv m that, is totally unworthy our oiyillzation and Christianity. The oatlonf, every one of thera, urgently need arj international court to adjuat all tlieir differences, and the writer of history tcxt-books for the school children shonld see that it is lus place to occupy that view-point