EDUCATION, AND DRINKING HABITS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."
SIR,—I am afraid you are mistaken, though I should be glad to- think you are not, in ascribing the diminished consumption of alcoholic beverages in the United Kingdom to compulsory education. Switzerland, one of the best educated countries in Europe, is very nearly, if not quite, the most drunken; and Geneva, beyond all comparison the best educated Canton of the Confederation, is the worst of all. The State spends on the education of a population of 100,000, £50,000 a year (equal to an expenditure for the United Kingdom of fifteen millions), and the people spend on drink a sum equal to £10 per head of population per annum! I should rather be disposed to attribute- the lessening addiction to drink in England to the effects of teetotal societies, and the growing conviction among all classes that alcohol in any shape is rarely beneficial, and often hurtful, to health, an idea which, as yet, has not so much as dawned on. the Continental mind. Here and in France mothers give their babies wine, and most people regard it as one of the prime necessaries of life.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Geneva, April 10th, WILLIAM WESTALL.
[The Teetotal Societies are all fed by Bands of Hope or children's Teetotal Societies, and Bands of Hope are almost all created at school and have become prosperous since schools became universal."—En. Spectator.]
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