“Now is the time of most urgent need that every safeguard and every
vigilant precaution be thrown around them to save them from the vile
habits and tendencies which they are exposed on every hand, and which
if allowed to get their grip now, will handicap the boys all their
lives, and in many cases ruin them for any further effective or
ambitious effort.
“Chief among these vices, because usually the _first_ to gain a
foothold, is the use of tobacco; and that seems to be the _father_
of all the rest. It _breeds deception_ at the very start, _in every
single case_, I believe; bad company, and even worse meeting places;
_dwarfed ambition, sluggish intellect_.
“Now if the young man has any _capacity or inclination_ in the
line of school work, we have the strongest possible appeal to his
_pride and his ambition_ in telling him that the use of tobacco is
absolutely ruinous to good scholarship. But the pupil will find a
_fatal flaw_ in the logic if the superintendent himself uses tobacco;
for almost inevitably in the mind of the pupil, the superintendent
is a _notable example of high_ scholarship. The best teaching,
except for some rudiments and routine of instruction is mostly a
matter of intangible atmosphere; the _right kind of influence_,
contact and association of the pupil with a _strong, clean, wholesome
personality_ in the teacher. Now if superintendent or college
professor or any other schoolman, has one _conspicuous weakness_;
_one habit_ that is universally considered a bad habit, he fails in
exactly the most important point; and though he may be strong as an
_instructor_, _disciplinarian_, _administrator_, yet he will be weak
as an _educator_, _as a maker of character_.
“He may surround himself with a corps of strong, loyal young men
and women, who will attend to the education of the pupils, while
he attends to the administration of the system; but even then, his
own influence in the development of character in the pupils will be
zero or a negative quantity. Now that kind of influence might answer
in the management of _a railroad_ or a _packing house_, but in the
administration of a school it is _not good enough_.”
What can we say to the boys when they quote the example of physicians,
college professors, school superintendents, ministers of the gospel,
churchmen, and even their own fathers? Such men should read the
following statement with care:--
“There is something about this Cigarette habit that weakens and
unnerves the boy. It _destroys his memory_, impairs his other
cognitive faculties, robs him of his power of attention, saps his
will-power, and deprives him of his initiative; he _becomes tremulous
and timid_, and fears to do the things he would.
“Often this filthy and disgusting habit has so fastened itself upon
the impressionable boy nature, that it can not be shaken off. _What
base slavery!_ What bonds of vice that _eat like canker_ into the
physical being of its victim!
“Many physicians with whom I consulted in the matter have assured
me of the effect of tobacco upon the growing boy, and all have
regarded the Cigarettes as the most pernicious form of tobacco
using. Do _college professors_, and _college men_, and other users
of Cigarettes who are in a position to influence boys, ever think of
their _responsibility_ for the bad example they give? How can advice
to refrain from the Cigarette be heeded when it comes from one who
is himself a user of the Cigarette?”--_Wm. H. DeLacy, Judge of the
Juvenile Court, Washington, D. C._
_Boy Criminals and the Cigarette_