I have no reason to believe that my boy would be particularly susceptible to tuberculosis. Nevertheless, I do not propose to expose him to it. His window is kept open while he sleeps, he is encouraged to spend much time out of doors, he is given breathing exercises daily, he is taught to take precautions against infection when near any one afflicted with the disease.
Nor have I any grounds for believing that my boy has inherited the condition that develops alcoholism. Looking back into his ancestry, I find some non-abstainers but no drunkards. I, his father, am absolutely immune to it. Neither a total abstainer nor, in my youth, even a temperatist, I have walked arm in arm with it, but found nothing to attract or allure.
But does this justify me in deliberately exposing my boy to it?
I do not know how he is equipped for it and there is no way of ascertaining. You can take your boy to the doctor and he will tell you whether or not his condition is favourable to consumption. But alcoholism is more insidious. Physicians can diagnose it but they cannot foretell or forestall it. There are some sanitariums for alcoholism, but there are no preventoriums.
“But,” I am told, “if it is in him it will come out sometime. Might it not better show itself under the watchful eye of the parents, rather than after the boy has gone out from the home?”
If it is in the boy, then every year that will put breadth to his shoulders, brawn on his arm, pride in his heart, judgment into his head and force into his character, makes him better able to cope with the disease. No, no, a thousand times no! Do not have on your soul the guilt of giving your boy his first taste of wine.
We must consider latent alcoholism as a possibility in bringing up our boys. Remember, alcoholism is not a habit only, but also a disease. It is much more prevalent than smallpox, but for alcoholism there is no vaccine; science offers no preventive serum. It is your sacred duty, then, to prevent the contact, to keep out the contagion until your son has his full growth and strength, and it is your duty to tell him the situation as I have outlined it, so that he may know the real danger of rum.
Then, if the tendency is not in him, nothing has been lost, and if it is in him, you have brought him to man’s estate well equipped to give the evil a fair fight for supremacy.