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the few who are morally their superiors, they still oftener succumb to the influence of the third class under consideration, those seventyseven, the majority of whom do no not recognize any authority except that which is enforced by municipal law. Of these, at least one-half consult only their own wishes and desires, and their self-made rules of life are based on an also self-assumed license, which opposes the welfare of the commonwealth, while being injurious to themselves in the end. I ask you now, how many of the hundred will and can be temperate when there is no restraint, whatever, when they are fully licensed to drink to excess? How many will remain sober and honorable in spite of an occasional glass, and how many will not ?”

"H'm, I really don't know," replied the boss, scratching his head in humorous perplexity. "I'm no encyclopaedia of temperance statistics, you know, but I guess about half of them will drink more than they ought to."

"But

"That's a pretty shrewd guess, and based, no doubt, on personal observation," said farmer Perkins, smiling in spite of himself, for what he said came from the very depths of his honest, humane heart. let us take a very small proportion-let us say twenty only exceed the laws of temperance, do you know what is the consequence?" "Well, I expect a crusher this time."

"If you would see the effects, just go to our police courts, to our poor-houses, to the insane asylums, and any saloon you may happen to find on your way. The keeper of the latter place may be an honest man, and many of his customers be decent and orderly enough, but stay there a day, and when you have watched closely all who come and go, then try to make up your mind that drinking does not lead to tippling, tippling to misery, and misery to crime. And, boss, you will do well to visit the homes of your companions at the tavern, and if you are a sane and honest man, you will say, truly, total abstinence must be enforced, if this is the result of liquor. But this is not all. The moralist draws much of the strength of his logic from the statistics of crime. Intemperance is the root of more evils than we are aware of. As for the logic employed by our tipplers, let me remind you of neighbor Hardup, who carries every shilling he earns to the tavern, but who cowhides his boys for following his example, calling them "gallows-birds," "sots" and "spendthrifts." Hardup shows a very nice appreciation of the virtues of a cause which he himself hates, if he traces the crimes committed by his children, to their habits of intemperance.'

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"Say what you will, the temperance laws cannot be enforced," said Calker, smacking his lips, "not as long as men are thirsty and grain plenty. If legislation were to prevent men from making fools or criminals of themselves, it could do nothing else; it would have to prevent prodigality, luxury, and many other things, for they all may lead to crime."

"But drinking to excess is (and always has been considered) an immorality, and what logic can deny to a majority of the people the right 'to treat it like all other immoralities? Who ever thought our statesmen wrong in making laws for the suppression of gambling, of prostitution? The premises are, that whatever is immoral, and opposed to divine and natural laws, in the individual, is dangerous to society, and a subject for legislation; and the deduction is, that whoever sins against our fixed notions of morality, and the laws enacted by the far-seeing

and wise representatives of the people, must be restrained or punished. Now, if you would exempt tippling from a wise control, you must first prove that it is not immorality."

"Of course it's no virtue, we all know that. But how to separate drinking and tippling, that's the difficulty! Let the inveterate sots be collared by justice, but men who drink moderately have a right to drink, I say," said the boss, with emphasis.

"And here, just here, rests the vital point of the question, which is this: Shall a license be granted because the ignorant, the selfish, and those who are greedy for gain, demand it, on the plea that only a certain per cent. are annually ruined by it-or shall the use of liquor be prohibited because a certain per cent. are ruined, another per cent. Inade temporarily immoral and even dangerous, and because no man or woman is, by the use of liquor, made better or happier-there being not a single instance on record where its benefits balanced its evil influence?' It is a question of unlimited license or total abstinence-for our moral and social state of imperfection makes the 'golden mean simply impossible. We must either tolerate an immorality, or abolish it with all the means in our power, for neither religion nor morals, neither philosophy nor logic, admit the possibility of a compromise of good and evil. A principle cannot be both, no more than a man can; and since you fail to convince me that liquor is of real moral or even physical benefit to man, I hold that it is a bane in all cases where it is not taken medicinally."

"It's of some use then, you admit that!"

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"Yes, of the same as many other things, which, if frequently indulged in, will injure us in some way. But alcohol, like opium (and, to a great extent, tobacco,) injures not only the body, it demoralizes us, makes us the abject slave of a brutish passion, and, by reason of its baneful influence, destroys many individuals and, in logical consequence, impairs the moral welfare of those who associate with the victims of intemprerance. It is therefore unfit to be used as a general beverage, since here every excess is dangerous, and because excess is the rule, not the exception, with more than twenty per cent. of our population, and because the other eighty per cent. suffer more or less in consequence of that excess."

Well, Perkins, I'm not going to argue that point with you, you are a reformer of the deepest dye and there's no use talking to you. No doubt you have a little scheme of your own for the prohibition of liquor traffick all ready in your coat pocket, and I shall see to it that this town won't cast any votes for you on 'lection day if you should happen to be a candidate for the assembly or the like. Now just let's hear how your would kill King Alcohol if it were in your power to do

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"That would be as hard a struggle as that of St. Michael with the powers of hell, and no man is able to wholly uproot an evil that has flourished for thousands of years, and is still in favor with a large majority. But one thing could be done a beginning could be made which would gradually lead to a better state of morals. Our youth must be brought up to embrace the idea of total abstinence as a public and social virtue, as well as a moral one. But who is to train them? Shall fathers, like Hardup, give the bad example, and then preach temperance, with the broom-stick? Will boys remain temperate and grow

up in the love of purity, when in our cities every third house is a dram shop; when they see men, to whom they look for example and instruction, leave their families and frequent the saloon? No, our boys will grow up the same manhood that now disgraces society, unless the fearful temptation be removed, the taverns closed, and liquor, or rather its use as a beverage, proscribed, just as gambling is proscribed by law. Then there will be a chance of a new generation's emancipating itself from a habit which too often terminates in vice.

"Well, here's Pen, a schoolmaster after your own heart, who never goes to the saloon, nor drinks in private, if indeed a man's nose is any index to his habits. Just let him start the business of inculcating temperance lessons on their youthful minds, as the Sabbath-school teacher used to say.'

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"So I do, boss; be sure of that. And you see that I try to live up to what I preach."

"That reminds me of what your predecessor, Joe H. once said. Says he, 'Boys, nothing is worse than to say one thing and do another.' I have your word now that you'll quit loafing, and I'll expect you to quit it!" And away he went to old Groggs' saloon, where he himself went under the name of "the loafer."

"I hope I remind you of this story in a negative way," said I. "I have often heard Joe H. mentioned, always in pity or derision. How is that possible where a teacher is concerned?

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"Poor Joe! You see, he was a sort of lost son and had bad luck here got fleeced because he wasn't on the lookout. He hadn't the grit to pay them in the same way, and so he lost his character. Farmer Perkins can tell you all about him; he knew him well."

"And he's just as handy an illustration of the influence of liquor on the morally weak and yielding, as John Gough could wish for his lectures," said our host. "If you really desire to hear the story of the poor fellow

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"Of course I do, Perkins," I exclaimed, for it was always a treat to hear him relate some incidents of his personal experience.

"Very well. Calker will supplement my remarks, and prevent me from being too partial in my narrative. Besides, he knows much from observation that I know only from hearsay, and can therefore correct my statements. I shall endeavor to tell the simple, unvarnished truth, and if that should happen to be somewhat unpalatable, neighbor Calk

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O, never mind me Parson; you just tell your story after your own fashion, for you know I'm not one of your thin-skinned, sensitive kind, or I wouldn't have been in office so long in this town, ha, ha!" And the boss made a significant pantomime in allusion to a certain cowhiding affair which occurred in connection with him at a recent election. Lambert Perkins smiled at the urbanity of his opponent, and then began his story.

THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. Never was the public more alive on the question of education than it is to-day. It is the "question of questions," claiming precedence of all others, and one that should enlist the co-operation of every good citizen. It is not a question of partyfor it should stand far above the jarring discords of sectarian or political strife. It is the great national question of the day.-J. A. McDONALD, Superintendent of Chippewa County.

TEACHERS AND TEXT-BOOKS.

BY M. JENNIE MUZZY, CLINTON.

Text-books furnish the teacher material for use; freed from dross and detail-they yield him the concentrated knowledge and wisdom of continents and centuries. Still they are not to be laid away entire on the shelves of memory; a head is not a vast receptacle to be duly crammed with many "ologies" and bookish philosophies, with unmeaning facts and unimportant details.

Books are designed to give, not words but ideas, not so much facts as principles. Facts are at best but the specific utterances under accidental relations of world-wide ever-recurring truths, and, having once fulfilled their mission in promoting mental growth by the nutriment of truth within them, can safely be trusted to the printed page of textbook or encyclopedia until further needed.

Teachers are of the greatest value in teaching the untrained mind to discrimate between facts and principles, to distinguish between the accidental and specific. Not being themselves in bondage to the textbook, it is their privilege to break through the shell of the language and disclose to their pupils the ideas contained, the systematic eduction of principles from facts; and later, lead them to investigate and judge for themselves of the correctness of those deductions. Textbooks and teachers are alike useless if they fail to awaken inquiry and stimulate thought and reflection.

Action produces strength and facility. The student needs a course of mental gymnastics, so that with increased brain force and accurately trained powers, he may grapple with subjects the most intricate and complex and apprehend ideas the most delicate and abstruse. The Professor is drill-master in mental calisthenics, and as master of his profession, must not be a mere medium for the transmission of other people's ideas, but a positive character, with acuteness and breadth of intellect, competent to do his own thinking, one who has the happy faculty of giving instruction in agreeable forms, of adjusting himself to individual peculiarities, of bringing out latent powers, of repressing unhealthy tendencies-who can make intellectual toil a pleasure, and the "getting of wisdom" a delight.

There is a "royal road to learning," and it is the scientific teachers who have made it. Believing that the natural order of development, either of body cr mind, is the true and pleasureable method, they have investigated the proper relations and due order of action of the faculties of perception, memory and reflection, and now, acting in accordance with nature's laws, they lead their pupils by a well-graded ascent up the clearly discerned hill of science which formerly was rough, and nettled by false systems of philosophy and pernicious methods of instruction, and shrouded to the summit in the darkness of obscurity and incomprehension.

Having once emerged from the blinding mists of ignorance nature reveals itself as an endless book in which the careful observer may trace out the thoughts of God. In things once meaningless and even repugnant he now discovers truth full of wisdom and beauty. In the sciences of man's making in Language and Mathematics he perceives the

workings of the human mind, notes its ingenuity in devising material coverings for immaterial thought, he wanders from the world of matter into that of pure reason, and-cut off from the concrete-seeks his way through the labyrinth of the abstract until hedged in by the infinite and incomprehensible.

SOLUTION OF A PROBLEM IN INTEREST.

BY L. CAMPBELL, DOOR CREEK.

[The problem, as first given below, was sent to the office of the State Superintendent for solution. No ready arithmetical solution being obvious, it was submitted to Mr. CAMPBELL, whose kind services as Mathematical Editor of the JOURNAL, in days of yore, we gratefully remembered. He generalizes the question, and furnishes an algebraic solution, and from this deduces a rule.-EDS.]

A man has a note of $500 (five hundred dollars), and wishes to pay it in five equal annual installments, at five per cent. per annum. What are the installments?

A debt of p dollars is to be paid, principal and interest, in n equal annual installments. Required the annual payment-r representing the interest of one dollar for one year?

Denote the principal to be paid at the end of the first, second, third, fourth, etc., years respectively, by A, B, C, D, etc. Then A+B+C+D+etc. p. (1)

A+rp first payment.
B+r(p-A)=second payment.

C+r(p-A-B)=third payment.
D+r(p¬A−B-C)=fourth payment.

And these payments being equal we have (omitting rp in each expression)

A=B-rA=C-r (A+B)=D−r (A+B+C), from which we find B=A(1+r), C=A(1+r)2, D=A(1+r)3.

Hence equation (1) becomes

A(1+(1+r)+(1+r)2 + (1+r)3+etc.)=p.

The sum of n terms of the series within the parenthesis:

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+rp=

rp(1+r)n (1+r)-1

=annual payment. (1+r)" —1 represents the compound interest of one dollar for n years at r per cent., and rp the interest of p dollars for one year at per cent. Hence we have the following rule for finding the amount to be paid annually:

RULE.-Divide the interest of the principal for one year by the compound interest of one dollar for the given time, and to the quotient add the interest of the principal for one year; the sum will be the annual payment required.

Example.-A man owes $500, and wishes to pay the debt, principal and interest, in five equal annual payments; how much must he pay annually, interest being five per cent.?

Interest of $500 for one year at five per cent.=$25.

Compound interest of $1 for five years at five per cent.=$0.2762+. (25.2762)+25=$115.51+. Ans.

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