The Press., 1888-05-17
TEMPERANCE COLUMN.
Conducted by the W. C.. T. U.l

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 [Conducted by the W. CIT U.l
 THE TOBACCO HABIT AND ITS EFFECTS UP
 ON SCHOOL WORK.
 After making study of several hundred boys, running through period of ten years, give only observed facts, and neither assume the conditions nor jump at | fore ordained conclusions.
 1. Boys that begin the habit at an early age are stunted physically, and never arrive at normal bodily development.
 2. Accompanied with the use of the narcotic were certain disordered physical functions, such as indigestion, impaired taste, defective eyesight, dull hearing. nervous affections and diseases of the heart. | have not found @ single case of early addicting to the habit of tobacco using that did not suffer with one or more of these direful abnormal conditions.
 3. Tobacco, used in any form, destroy and prevented his comprehending or re- membering his lessons. The mental facul- ties of boy under the influence of the narcotic seems to be in stupor, and since. depraved nerve power stultifies and weak ems the will power, there is but little use for the teacher to seek to arouse the dor mant, paralyzed energies, or to interest and foster the Jagged deslre. I have not met pupil that is addicted to the habit who will go through 8 single days work and have good lessons. I have never had one whose scholarship record was good, and in almost every case the department was below the average standard. At the regular examlnations for promotion, nearly every one of the tobaeco-using pupils fail in doing the most reasonable test work, even if this is not the first time the work has been passed over in class. I have had numbers of cases in which they have re- mained ill the same grade for four suc- cessive years, and then they were not ready to be advanced into the next higher class.
 Actat0l Cases.-1. A high-school boy who had always done excellent work, was reported one term as not getting his les. sons. had talk with the boy and stated the fact, assuring him that with his past record his poor work was unexplainable, as he insisted that he devoted his time faithfully to his studies. He denied using tobacco at all. His work failed from month to month, and before the year closed his parents withdrew him frcm school. His father deeply regretted the failure, admitting that change had come in the boys conduct at home, but as he h Id heretofore been truthful and faithful, he could not think-that the pre-supposed cause was the true one. In few mouths the habit, thus far secret, became more pronounced and more public, and it was absolutely established by the boys own admissions, that it was several mouths be- fore the trouble nntic d at school, and that no one knew it s4ve the salesman that furnished him the supply of the mar cOtic
 2. Four years ago boy entered one of my primary schools as chart pupil. Be- fore the boy was four years of age he had learned the habit of smoking cigarettes and stubs of cigars His father taught him the use of narcotics, and considered 1t sport to see his son exhibit the habits and tastes of his elders. During the four ears he did not complete the twenty four les sons on the chart, although he attended regularly, and applied himself as diligently as the average pupil of that grade. He seemed perfectly unable to learn like other children, though he was at the beginning a precocious, promising child. His mental activity was so dulled aud paralyzed as to render him but little better than an idiot or an imbeciIe. Experience has shown that the younger the habit is acquired, the more disastrous the results to the mentali- ty of the child.
 3. One boy was Q successful primary pupil. His work and his interest were constantly praised by his teachers. On his entering the last half of the third gfade, his work began to lag and his interest to decline. At the examination for promo ton his case was conditioned, and it was detected that he had begun some months before to use tobacco His parents were in- formed, and strenuous efforts were made by his teacher to get the habit restrained and corrected. His reform was not secured, and though he remained five years in the same grade, he was never able to advance on merit, and several trial promotions proved failures.
 4. In Q case where reform was secured and the habit overcome, the pupil again returned to normal progress, and had a successful career as a student.
 Other O6seTV0ti0ns.-So far as my ob- servations have extended, not single boy has passed the examination required for admission to the high school after he had acquired the habit, and not one has grad hated from the high school who began the habit after beginning his curse in the high school.
 But the moral results are also as serious. Pupils under the influence of the weed are constant subjects of discipline, are not truthful, practice deception, and cannot be depended upon. A change in character in formerly good boy is a very strong in dication that some habit is getting hold upon him whose tyranny must be broken before he will again be clothed in his right mind. The worst characteristic of the habit is loss of personal self respect, and of personal regard for the customs and wishes of ladies and gentlemen, especially when among strangers.
 If these observations mean anything, they declare that something ought to be done to save child life from the pit falls that commercial interests are digging, and that greed is encouraging; that more should be done than to instruct by oral o1 text lessons in school; that teachers, parents and philanthropists are not yei sufficiently aroused regarding the magni tude of the evil of tobacco using by chil- dren; that in the crusade against alcohol we should recognize that other evils, tho more quietly, are just as surely sappine the strength and destroying the vigor ol the youth of this generation. n.-H. H. Seer tey, Principal of LoaOG State Norma School.
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