----
Every human being should read history intelligently, if only for
the encouraging effect on the mind.
In every direction, and in spite of foolish croakers, the human
race has improved.
Good men and women deplore the drunkenness of to-day, and they do
right. But for their own satisfaction and encouragement they
should know that in comparison with former times the drunkenness
of to-day amounts to nothing.
Where one man drinks too much in these days, a thousand men and a
thousand women were frightfully drunk a few years ago.
Drunkenness, which formerly attacked the most useful of human
beings--doctors, statesmen, poets, the best mechanics--is
confined now to a feeble fragment of humanity made weak by
disease, hereditary influence, discouragement or imperfect
organization.
More important than this encouraging development is the changed
attitude of the public mind toward the drinking habit.
Twenty-five centuries ago a Greek philosopher, to make heaven
attractive, described the table at which heroes sat in a
never-ending, blissful state of drunkenness.
To-day even the meanest man is ashamed to have it known that he
is drunk, and the most hopeless drunkard would ask no greater
favor than that some one should make it impossible for him ever
to drink again.
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