[Sidenote: Athletics versus Smoking]
Meantime Miss Hardy had been studying her psychology, and between times
had been talking athletics with her old pupils who had passed on into
the high school. The high school teams were well coached and in football
had made a good record that gave promise of being equaled in basket
ball. The best man on the teams was Raymond Johnston, who was one of
those marvels of all-around excellence who happen once in a while to
rejoice the hearts of teachers. He was a big, handsome boy, with a bluff
charm of manner which won all hearts, and ready friendliness which made
him the idol of the school. He was a star student, who had made a good
record in debating as well as in athletics.
Raymond Johnston belonged, moreover, to a prominent family in the nearby
city, a family in which high ideals of manners and morals were so
intrinsic a part of living that the children grew up healthy,
unconscious exponents of all that is best in character and living. It
was this fine, talented boy whom Miss Hardy chose to do for her boys
what she knew, able as she was, she could not herself do effectively.
At first Raymond Johnston declined with embarrassed modesty to give a
series of talks on athletics to the eighth grade pupils. But when Miss
Hardy had explained to him clearly the great need, and had shown him
that he alone could do the thing that must be done, he finally
consented. The two planned a campaign as carefully as Miss Steele had
done; and when the plans were complete, Miss Hardy told her pupils of
the treat she had secured for them.
In the first three talks there was no mention of cigarettes at all. The
speaker gave a lively account of the four great ball games, with
blackboard diagrams of positions and plays, and anecdotes from his own
experience which added the personal touch needed. For a boy he was a
ready speaker, and his enthusiasm knew no bounds. When he had given the
three talks, Miss Hardy saw with satisfaction that the first step was
gained; her boys and girls understood the games very well, and discussed
them with the air of conscious experts. All day they talked of nothing
but forward passes, and overhand serves, and left-twist curves, and the
latest “dope” on basket ball prospects. This was in the winter term,
when basket ball held the front of the stage. She knew they must be
talking athletics at home, awake and asleep; she knew that, vivified by
his virile example, Raymond Johnston had won that room to the athletic
ideal of manhood in a healthy and natural way, and that with an ideal of
conduct-controlling vividness gained, the rest of the campaign could be
carried out with good hopes of success.
Then Raymond gave his fourth talk on “The Making of an Athlete.” He
talked about fresh air, food, sleep, clothing, training and regularity
of habits. He touched on the ethics of sportsmanship, and every boy in
the room resolved to be “square” and conceived a vast contempt for the
“yellow streak” that the high school hero treated with such scorn. Then
Raymond took up the cigarette question, as the next step in his outline
of the athlete-making process.
“Of course a man can’t smoke if he wants to make the team,” he said.
“Some of the high school fellows do smoke, but they aren’t the ones who
make good at athletics or anything else. You’ll see them hanging around
the Station Store afternoons, when the fellows that make the team are
out training. Why don’t you eighth graders come out and watch us
sometimes, by the way, instead of going right home after school? You’d
get lots of pointers that would help you. You have your own teams, don’t
you? If not, why not organize some? You ought to have three or four in
this grade, for you’ll be in the high school next year and you ought to
be in training.
“But remember, you can’t eat piles of doughnuts and you can’t smoke if
you ever want to do anything in athletics. Rich food puts your digestion
out of commission, and smoking goes straight to your heart—and that’s
what you can’t stand when you’re playing. They make you fall behind in
your lessons, too, and then you’re not allowed to play on a team. I
never smoke, and the other fellows that do anything in athletics or
debating don’t either. We can’t; we know better.
“Now, I hope this spring you fellows will all get out and get some good
training in baseball and track, because when we’re gone we want to hear
that the high school is keeping up her old record; and it’ll depend on
you fellows that are coming on. You can do as well as we have or better,
if you just will.”
Miss Hardy’s plan did work. It worked because she substituted a good
ideal for imitation instead of a poor one. The poor one had been
presented to her boys without her consent; she had to make an
intelligent effort to get the fine one vividly before them. She did not
arouse opposition by making her cause too obvious, by forcing the
didactic tone; it appeared as one part of an attractive program—but it
was made clear that it was an indispensable part. She followed up the
talks with suggestions that fostered the organization of baseball teams
in the spring, the regular coach coöperating with suggestions and
occasional instruction. Her boys seemed to have forgotten that they ever
thought it smart to smoke. When she left at the end of the year, the
coach told her that he was certain that not one of her boys was a user
of cigarettes.