Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1886-04-07
TOBACCO IN SCHOOLS.
The Pcrniciuus Effects of the Weed Upo
Youthful Devotees.

Ehe PerntciUus Effects of the Weed Upon
Youthful Devotees.
Teachers as well as physicians are
viewing with great and increasing con-
Germ the serious injury, mental and
physical. that is growing out of the use
OF tobacco by boys in their teens.
Whatever may be said of the effects of
the weed upon adults-and one OF the
gravest of them is that it causes the
transmission of depraved appetite
and a disordered nervous system to
their offspring-all observing teachers
are agreed that the boy who is a slave
to tobacco is at an immense disad-
vantage in the race of school life. At
recent meeting of the State Teachers
Association of Iowa, one of the ablest
and most successful of the superintend-
ents of schools in that State read a
paper on ''The effect of the tobacco
habit on school work" in which he
presented conclusions which may seem
extreme and fanatical to tobacco lovers,
but which experienced teachers are
forced to accept as plain statements of
fact. Boys that began the habit at
an early age he has uniformly observed
to become permanently stunted, men
tally and physically, and especially
that their reasoning powers are OBJ
scured, their memory tFeacherous, and
zeal for study altogether lacking. In
digestion, impaired taste, defective eye
sight, dull hearing, nervous affections
and diseases of the heart among the
pupils under his care he has been able
70 oE
cases, to an inveterate use of tobacco,
often unknown to parents and home
friends. In many instances, BOYS who
had been doing admirably in their
studies showed marked falling off in
zeal, mental grasp and general success
in scholarship, a change almost inva-
riably traceable to the formation of the
tobacco habit. The mental faculties of
a boy under the influence of the mar
cOtlc seem to be in stupor, and since
the will power is simultaneously stupe-
fled and weakened it avails little to try
and arouse the dormant energies or to
interest the tagged desire. The moral
results of the habit at this early age are
no less serious. Pupils under it's infiu-
ence are apt to become constant sub
jects for discipline at home and at
school. Boys that were usually even
tempered and easily governed, after be-
ginning the use of tobacco become de-
cidedly the reverse. When in such cases,
by the influence of parents and teach
ers, the habit has been abandoned. the
normal character has invariably been
resumed. But to secure it's abandon
ment is always a most difficult task,
since one of its worst characteristics is
a loss of self-respect and of regard for
parents and real friends. All the evil
results mentioned do not, of course,
appear concurrently in each and every
boy that uses tobacco; but the benumb-
ing and befogging effect upon the in
tellect is nearly or quite universal. The
author of the paper referred to asks for
a law prohibiting sales of tobacco to
minors. Such a law exists in New
Hampshire, but is nullity. We fancy
that no law will do much good until
parents, elder brothers, clergymen,
teachers, successful business men, and
those generally who figure in boyish
eyes as models of manly excellence,
bring themselves to the practice of self
denial for the boys sake. Before that
time comes the inexorable law of the
survival of the fittest will, we fear, be
left long in chief control of the problem,
and hundreds of thousands of our most
promising boys will sacrifice their
prospects in life upon the reeking altar
of the GrimV idOl-BOStOn TrdDeLLer