Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction

The following year, at the seventh convention of the U.S. WCTU, the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction in Schools and Colleges was established, and Mary Hunt was elected the founding national superintendent.

[3] Therefore, books which she approved asserted that "To attempt to drink fermented liquors moderately has led to the hopeless ruin of untold thousands" and "It is the nature of alcohol to make drunkards."

The Committee of Fifty for the Study of the Liquor Problem investigated the nature of alcohol education promoted by Mary Hunt and the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction.

Hunt prepared a Reply in which she charged the Committee with being prejudiced against abstinence instruction, accused it of grossly misrepresenting facts, and insisted that the WCTU-endorsed textbooks were completely accurate.

[citation needed] When national prohibition went into effect in 1920, the WCTU actually promoted its temperance education efforts with even greater fervor to protect its hard-won gain.

In states and counties that chose to remain "dry" (maintain prohibition), students tended to continue receiving temperance instruction.