Not only has disease been transmitted from generation to generation, but parents bequeath to their
children their own wrong habits, their perverted appetites, and corrupt passions. Men and women
are slow to learn wisdom from the history of the past. The strange absence of principle that
characterizes the present generation, the disregard of the laws of life and health, is astonishing.
Although a knowledge of these things can be readily obtained, a deplorable ignorance prevails.
With the majority, the principal anxiety is “What shall I eat? what shall I drink? and wherewithal
shall I be clothed?” Notwithstanding all that has been said and written upon the importance of
health and the means to preserve it, appetite is the great law which governs men and women
generally.
What can be done to stay the tide of disease and crime that is sweeping our race down to ruin and to
death? As the great cause of the evil is to be found in the indulgence of appetite and passion, so the
first and great work of reform must be to learn and practice the lessons of temperance and selfcontrol.
To effect a permanent change for the better in society, the education of the masses must begin in
early life. The habits formed in childhood and youth, the tastes acquired, the self-control gained, the
principles inculcated from the cradle, are almost certain to determine the future of the man or
woman. The crime and corruption occasioned by intemperance and lax morals might be prevented
by the proper training of the youth.
One of the greatest aids in perfecting pure and noble characters in the young, strengthening them to
control appetite and refrain from debasing excesses, is sound physical health. And, on the other
hand, these very habits of self-control are essential to the maintenance of health….
Especially is youth the time to lay up a stock of knowledge to be put in daily practice through life.
Youth is the time to establish good habits, to correct wrong ones already contracted, to gain and to
hold the power of self-control, and to lay the plan and accustom one’s self to the practice of ordering
all the acts of life with reference to the will of God and the welfare of our fellow creatures.—The
Review and Herald, December 13, 1881.