You have all seen bottles of poison, and you know when your father or
mother buys poison from the druggist there is a label on the bottle
marked "POISON" in large letters, and on the label is a picture of a
skull and crossbones. This is done to warn people from drinking the
poison.
Now, if a druggist were to put clear, pure water into a bottle, and put
a label marked "Poison" on it, no one would drink the water if he were
choking, for fear of being poisoned.
And there are boys and girls just like that good, pure, fresh water with
the poison-label on it. They are good at heart. They are kind and
unselfish and obedient, but nobody will have anything to do with them
because they put such terrible poison-labels upon themselves.
I will tell you what some of these poison-labels are which frighten
people away from boys and girls. One of them is slang. Now, of course,
some girls and boys who are inwardly little ladies and gentlemen use
slang, but usually slang is used by low-bred people who have not words
enough to say what they want to. And consequently when you use slang, if
people do not know that you are well-bred boys and girls, they think
that you are coarse and vulgar, and they will have nothing to do with
you.
Another poison-label that boys sometimes stick on is swearing. And of
course that is always bad-mannered. Another is smoking. Another is bad
company. I knew a boy who was really good at heart, but who persisted in
going with bad boys, and no business man in town would take him into his
business because of that terrible label.
Girls sometimes wear such poison-labels as forwardness; that is, they
are always making themselves heard and seen. Others are proud. Others
chew gum.
I have not time to mention all of these different labels. You can think
of them for yourselves. What I want to say is that it is too bad for
such good, useful, well-intentioned and wholesome boys and girls to put
on labels which lead people to think less of them than they should
think. For by these things they spoil their chances of getting into the
company of well-bred people.