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FOR THE GAZETTE AND MERCURY.

TEMPERANCE IN SCHOOLS.

Two or three years since, I suggested through the medium of your paper the importance of this subject, with the remark that a recent proposal for such an association in my own school had met with unexpected success. Experience has since proved the feasibility and utility of the measure. Our numbers have gradually increased until last term, when every member of the school was found enrolled on the Temperance list. We have just organized for the present term and have 45 signatures, about 9-10ths of our members. This measure has apparently prepared the way for another, in my view, still more important, embraced in the following resolution unanimously passed, a few evenings since, after a discussion of the subject, at a meeting of the town Temperance Society. "Resolved that it is expedient to form Juvenile Temperance Societies, as far as practicable, in all our District Schools." The general school Committee were instructed to prepare a constitution for such organizations, with the design of presenting it to Teachers at their examinations for the winter schools, that the object may be carried into immediate operation.

Would it not be well in these times of Temperance declension for the numerous Academies, and Select schools in our County to make a strenuous, and simultaneous effort in this noble cause, and thus diffuse an influence throughout the medium of Teachers who issue from these institutions upon our whole juvenile population, until we can furnish to the world, the interesting spectacle of a whole community of children effectually shielded against the pestiferous influence of strong drink.

JOHN CLARY.

Conway, Nov. 13, 1837.

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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The Temperance Movement began in the early 1800s and by 1833 there were 6,000 local societies in the United States. Women and children were a driving force in the movements to prohibit the consumption of strong drink, slavery and to promote women's suffrage. This article reports on a temperance society at the school in Conway, Massachusetts. The town Temperance Society passed a resolution to instruct the school committee to write a constitution for school societies which would then be given to the teachers. The teachers would then form Juvenile Temperance Societies in their district. The Gazette & Mercury was the newspaper in Greenfield, Massachusetts, from June 27, 1837 to July 13, 1841, when it changed its name to the Gazette & Courier.

 

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"Temperance in Schools" article from Gazette and Mercury newspaper

publisher   Greenfield Gazette and Mercury
date   Nov 21, 1837
location   Greenfield, Massachusetts
width   3.75"
height   5.25"
process/materials   printed paper, ink
item type   Periodicals/Newspaper
accession #   #L05.029


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See Also...

"Temperance Meeting" article from the Greenfield Gazette and Franklin Herald newspaper

Excerpt from Volume II of the Adelphi Society Records

"Sons of Temperance Membership of Elijah Spencer Fuller"


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