SECTION III.

BAND OF HOPE OPERATIONS.

The Temperance Movement amongst the Young in Edinburgh, the United States, and Canada. By PETER SINCLAIR.

F

ROM an early period in the history of the Temperance Reform the importance of a movement amongst the young has been distinctly recognised.

At the World's Temperance Convention, held in London, in August, 1846, the committee, in explaining the objects of that Convention, call the attention of the delegates to the subject, and thus express themselves: "The committee feel that special attention ought to be paid, and some specific and efficient agency employed, with regard to the rising generation."

I would offer the following information upon the Temperance movement amongst the young in Edinburgh, the United States, and Canada.

The movement in Edinburgh was reported upon at the World's Temperance Convention in 1846. It began with one meeting, attended by a very few children, and gradually grew until it had assumed proportions to attract the notice of other parts of the country.

There are few who have taken any interest in this department of effort from that time who can have forgotten the great gathering of Juvenile Abstainers in the Queen's Park, on the 5th of July, 1851, when the delegations from the various juvenile societies of Scotland, with their friends, were estimated to amount to 70,000 persons.

From 1847 till the present time the movement has been sustained by the munificent liberality of John Hope, Esq., whose contributions to this one object exceed £20,000. The movement is distinctly educational in its character, and consists of children's meetings.

The city is divided into districts of convenient size, and a meeting is opened within each, easy of access to every child in the district; a printed notice of the meeting is left at every house in the district, and the parents are invited to send their children to it.

The meetings are held weekly under the charge of a paid agent, who is called the superintendent; they commence at 5-30 p.m., and close at 6-30 p.m. This early hour is fixed upon from a conviction that it is undesirable to have children out late at night, and the brevity and frequency of the meetings were determined upon from the experience that long meetings at greater intervals of time were not productive of the results desired.

The exercises of the meetings are thus arranged and timed :—

1. Singing and Prayer

2. Reading a Temperance Lesson

3. Singing and Addresses bythe Children

4. Address by the Superintendent, Marking

the Roll, and Intimations.

5. Singing and Prayer ...

In all....

The enrolment of new members takes place at the close of the meetings. The weekly meetings thus arranged and conducted have been found attractive, the attendance regular, the improvement marked, and the results altogether most satisfactory.

A reading or Temperance lesson consists of four pages, commencing with an appropriate text of Scripture, then follows a simple description of intoxicating liquors, or of alcohol a poison, or of tobacco, snuff, opium, or of the physiological effects of these, or of the success of the Maine-law, or of the immorality of the Liquor-Traffic, or of the duty of Abstinence, or of anecdotes, stories, facts, and testimonies bearing on the subject, concluding with a few questions.

The reading having been placed in the hands of all in attendance, the best readers are selected, and in succession read aloud short sentences; while each child, paper in hand, follows the reader, prepared to answer any questions the superintendent may put. The text of Scripture is committed to memory.

These readings were prepared and introduced for the purpose of imparting correct information on the whole question embraced in our Abstinence movement; by treating of one subject at a time, and by presenting a different subject each night, a systematic course of lessons was secured, suited to the capacity of the children, and yet of sufficient importance to attract the attention of the parents and older members of families; and thus these readings were found to be valuable, not merely in the meetings, but in the homes of our people.

Neat cases were prepared, capable of holding as many of the readings as would be given out in the course of the session; and each child, on receiving its reading, was requested to insert it in its proper place in the case. At the end of the session a volume of correct, interesting, and varied Temperance reading was acquired, which served as a class or lesson book, and afforded material for the preparation of addresses by the children or youth.

In like manner Temperance melodies were presented, in four-page

form, and placed in the case. Each melody was committed to memory, and the superintendent teaches the children to sing them to appropriate

tunes.

Two or three short addresses by the children form a profitable and pleasing part of every evening's exercise; when careful preparation is made, the effect is very perceptible upon their companions, and the news at home is no less beneficial upon parents.

The superintendent's address is very brief, and may be said to be a commentary on the leading ideas of the reading of the children's addresses, and of the melodies sung, fastened upon the minds of the young by some observation or anecdote.

The singing at the beginning, in the mid-hour, and at the close, is not only an agrecable exercise, but a most delightful method of imparting correct principles; and being occasionally associated with some of the favourite Sunday school hymns, or day school songs, is thus incorporated in the youthful mind and affections with those delightful hours of childhood's young dream which can never be effaced; while the lesson and the addresses give solidity and variety, and assume a greater importance in the youthful estimation, preceded and followed as they are by a short, fervent, appropriate prayer.

There is a children's committee in each meeting, chosen by the children themselves, to assist the superintendent, to visit absentees, to distribute notices through the district, and to aid in increasing the attendance, and securing the good conduct of all who are present.

There are at present twenty children's meetings in different parts of the city thus conducted; this is a smaller number than there was at one time, but the place of these discontinued meetings has been supplied by an hour in the day schools.

By arrangement with the directors and teachers of some of the largest schools in the city, one hour each week, during the regular school hours, has been granted to the Temperance superintendent for the purpose of imparting Temperance instruction, by readings, melodies, and suitable addresses; so that, as a matter of regular Temperance education, this much has been gained in the direction of introducing Temperance into the ordinary instructions of the day school.

There are thirty-six schools where this hour is regularly occupied week after week. I admit this is far from being a realisation of the wish expressed in one of the melodies, sung by the children in these meetings and in these schools.

When Abstinence shall be taught at school,

Like other kinds of knowledge,

Taught as a universal rule,

From Pulpit, Press, and College.

Yet it is a step in the right direction-a step which I should be glad to know had been attained, in a like proportion of the schools, in every town and city of Great Britain.

But the children will become young men and women, and leave the children's meetings and the day school, and what will become of them then?

Both for the sake of the children who had grown up to be young men and women under this Abstinence training, and for the sake of those who did not enjoy that advantage, meetings were opened for young men and women at a later hour of the evening, where exercises adapted to their more mature views were conducted. These meetings have been carried on with much success, and they form the connecting link between the children's meetings and the adult meetings. They last for two hours, and the time is thus appropriated :—

5. Address and Recitations by young men; Essays
by young women.

6. Prayer

Total ...

To aid the young men and women in the selection of suitable subjects, a list of fifty-one subjects is printed, with notes, outlines, and references to authorities; and to give facilities for thorough preparation of essays, compositions, or addresses, free access is given to an excellent library of standard Temperance literature. All the young men's essays, compositions, or addresses, must be delivered extempore; the young women's are read.

These meetings assume as much as possible the character of mutual instruction classes, where the exercise of the talents of the young men and women are encouraged and aided to such an extent as to call into operation that self-reliant, self-developing power, which, lying latent, corrupts, decays, or destroys; but which evoked, elevates, ennobles, and lives, till the lineaments of the Divine are descried in combination with the human.

By this simple arrangement the idea so distasteful to young men and women, conscious of a power which they know not how to use-viz., of being treated as children-is got rid of; and by gentle training, under the kind eye of a judicious superintendent, they are brought into the field of usefulness, a moral, intellectual, and religious power, which, by the Heavenly blessing, is being felt all over the earth.

Examinations take place regarding the attainments in Temperance knowledge both of the children and the young men and women, and prizes are awarded to those who most distinguish themselves for proficiency; there are also written competitions on the readings, essays, and speeches, and honourable mention is made of those who, by regularity of attendance, good beheaviour, and zeal in the cause, have merited it.

There are four evening schools for young men, and one for young women, where all the ordinary branches of a good English education are imparted free of charge, under the care of thoroughly qualified teachers. One night each week is appropriated to the Temperance cause, thus combining reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, geography, composition

with Temperance as a branch of education, in a regularly established series of evening schools, which have been conducted for a number of years, and largely availed of by those who desire to continue and extend the education they have obtained at the day schools.

There are two or three teachers in each school according as the attendance or other circumstances may require, and they, with the Temperance superintendent, conduct the instruction given on the night devoted to Temperance.

There are thus 20 children's meetings; 36 children's hours in day schools for Temperance; 4 young men's meetings; 1 young women's meeting: 61 meetings in all held week after week, or 2,867 throughout the session of eleven months.

At these meetings Total Abstinence from intoxicating liquors, tobacco, and opium, in every form and degree, is the Temperance taught and enjoined, not as an expedient, but as a duty, as a right. The extermination of the Liquor-Traffic is inculcated, and, as a simple act of justice on the part of the Government to the people, it is demanded. The young are encouraged by every possible means to seek the entire overthrow of the whole drink-making, drink-selling, and drink-using system as a gigantic wrong. There is no pledge, each member of the society is such while he abstains, and ceases to be a member when he ceases to abstain.

The following were the actual numbers present at one week's meetings in each of the months of the session of 1861, the books not having yet been made up for 1862:-September, 5,807; October, 6,585; November, 6,685; December, 7,072; January, 6,469; February, 6,689; March, 6,353; April, 5,776; May, 5,523; June, 6,110; July, 6,021; giving an average presence of 6,281 at each week's meetings. Making allowance for such irregularity of attendance as occurs in schools, there could not have been less than 8,000 children and young persons under this instruction during the session; and these, at the most moderate computation, could not fail in some degree to bring the principles they were taught under the notice of 30,000 persons.

The influence of children and youth upon parents, friends, and companions, is underrated. I could fill volumes with interesting cases of reformation and preservation distinctly owing to the influence of the young. Would that this influence was more extensively employed in the land, so that there might be an angel in the form of a little Temperance boy or girl, young man or woman, in every house.

The meetings are all under the charge of paid superintendents who meet weekly for the study of the subject to be taught in the meetings, and to interchange their views as to the best mode of illustrating the reading, essays, or compositions, and generally for taking counsel together as to the work. They have access to the library of Temperance literature, and are encouraged to seek out whatever can promote the welfare of those committed to their care. They report weekly in writing whatever transpires of interest.

The system of paid agents was adopted because it was found that the hours most suitable for the children's attendance at meetings were those which persons in business could not devote to the work; and, to be successful,