“Give milk to children, not alcohol!”

The Anti-alcohol Movement and Youth in Slovenia until the Second World War

Abstract

The guidelines of the movement against alcoholism – “the human plague” –, with a special emphasis on youth, were laid both theoretically and practically only at the beginning of the 20th century. Educators of youth believed that the new age in the sense of a productive life could only be built by healthy people and by no means by addicts to the world of deviations and immorality – drinkers of alcoholic drinks and drunkards – which is why they declared war on alcohol. After the end of the First World War, the authorities helped the educators with a set of ordinances and circulars. The authorities wanted teachers and catechists to actively engage in the fight against alcoholism among the young. They wanted to influence children and youth both in school (with classes on alcoholism and its disastrous consequences) and outside it (by organizing societies of schoolchildren and high school students – abstainers). Research in the decade before the Second World War showed that, in order to be successful in this temperance work, it was necessary not only to trace and explore the influence of alcohol on the mental and bodily health, but also in order to reduce or eradicate the problem, to change the economic and social system completely. Research also showed that it was schools, organizations for the protection of the young, various societies, as well as the state, the provinces and municipalities that had to be active in organizing protection for the young against alcoholism. Researchers thus put forward the example of parents, which, however, was too often a negative one.