That the reader may clearly comprehend my present condition
and impartially judge as to my culpability in certain of my acts, I desire
that he may know the circumstances and surroundings of my childhood, for I
do solemnly aver that my sorrows and miseries were not of my own planting
in those days. While I believe that some men will be drunkards in spite of
almost everything that can be done for their relief, others there are, no
matter how surrounded, who never will be drunkards, but solely because they
abstain from ever tasting the insidious poison. Temperament has much to do
with the matter of drink, and could it be known and properly guarded
against, I believe that a majority of those having the strongest
predisposition to drink, if steps were taken in time, could be saved from
its inevitable end, which is madness and death. I would here say to parents
that it is their solemn duty to study well the disposition and temperament
of their children from the hour of their birth. By proper training and
restraint, all wrong impulses might be corrected and the child saved from a
life of shameful misery, while they would themselves escape the sorrow
which would come to them because of the wrong-doing of the child.
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