It is impossible to blame most boys very severely for yielding to the smoke-temptation; therefore it becomes a difficult matter to blame them for the wrong-doing which tends to follow it. Their error is only the continuation of a similar error that their fathers have made before them and now tacitly encourage. It is difficult to make any lad believe that he need not be a fool because his father is one. Yet in most cases to save a boy from the demonstrable ills of tobacco-using entails just this course of reasoning. Orators and essayists from the beginning of time have found a stumbling-block in preaching to their followers virtues they admire and value, but do not themselves possess. The father who forbids his son to smoke because it is harmful and expensive, while his own person reeks with it, is not likely to impress the lad very vividly with either the force or the honesty of his argument. More than one parent has found himself abashed in such circumstances by a son with logic and intelligence. For such a parent there is only one really honest course--to admit to his son that he himself has been a fool, but that he does not wish his son to follow in his footsteps.
THE NECESSITY OF EDUCATION CONCERNING THE DANGER OF TOBACCO
There is no question in my mind that this matter of tobacco should be made the basis of a very thorough educational campaign among the youth of the United States. The shocking spread of the tobacco habit among the women of American cities indicates, moreover, need for extending this instruction to girls as well.
If cleanliness of body is next to godliness, then cleanliness of mind is godliness, and cleanliness of mind, real cleanliness, is impossible while ignorance exists. Nothing in education is more generally neglected than the enlightenment of the young--an enlightenment which can come only from the mouths of elders who are themselves clean--as to the deadly nature of alcohol, habit-forming drugs, and tobacco. I should very much dislike to send a young and impressionable son for instruction in any subject to any teacher, male or female, who used cigarettes. Thousands upon thousands of parents in this country feel as I do on this subject; but while they realize the danger which might result from the influence of a teacher who smokes, they utterly neglect the far more dangerous and powerful influence of a father who smokes. To my mind, however, it is essential that parents should seriously consider the personal character of the men to whom they intrust the education of their boys.