Bisbee daily review., 1912-02-04
CIGARETTE HABIT IS CONSIDERED AS
 HANDICAP ID BOYS
California School Man 1T Red Bluff Tells of Its
 III Effects

tne tobdCcO prosecution cases, each side expressed itself in the columns of The Review The criticism did not for moment intend 10 decry the evil of the use Of tobacco by school boys. it was the methods that were eIn- ployed in obtaining evidence. the uss of boys as stool pigeons that raised the objection that was publicly voiced. There js no division of opin. ion that the law should be enforced. however. and that the prohibition of the sala of tobacco to children is wise and excellent The prosecutions will result in greater care on the part oi tobaeconists. and will tend to hold in check the small boy who thinks il smart and grown up" Co use cig- arettes
 The truant officer recently stated that in Bisbee there were fifty cig- arette smoking boys between the ages of seven and fourteen. As to the motives that were behind the prosecution. the following. written by Paul G. Ward. of Red BlufI. Cal, and polished in the Journal of Education, tells of the conditions in the Red Blue schools:
 Habit is Handicap
 (By Paul C. Ward Red Bluff, Call
 A study of the school record and life record of sixty-nine boys in the Red Bluff high school from 1902 to 1908 shows that tobacco users lost out very regularly.
 T believe the cigarette habit is the greatest handicap in existence against the high school boy. There have been volumes of stuff printed to show why the boy quits school Every such volume should have the picture O. a cigarette as its frontispiece. Tobaos co, worse than any other factor, is responsible for those boys who fall by the wayside. The records. if ever brought to light. will prove it.
 Such boys are like wormy apples They drop long before the harvest time. Very few of them ever advance far enough to enter college. Very few of those who enter, last beyond the first year. l want 10 add my ex- perience to that of Dr. Jordan. l have been in charge of various Cali. fornia schools for the past eighteen years. most of the time being super. yising principal Of both grammar school and high school, and invariably in that experience the tobacco boy. if he ever reached the high school, did so in a weakened condition. Ney- CT, in those eighteen years, have 1 graduated a tobacco boy from the high school with sufficient credit to gain entrance to the state university Not one of them has ever made any serious effort toward a higher educa- tiOn.
 The whole school course is strewn with tobacco wrecks. But if every school man would dig up the local records that lie before him, and would publish them 10 his school and tO D s town, he cannot fail of hearing.
 Evil is Decreasing
 The three Red Bluff dailies were eager for the data We offered. Many papers throughout the state copied it. The boys were impressed. The per centage of tobacco boys in the Red BluT high school fell, in one year, from forty-six per cent to Jess than .en per cent
 Out ot the. forty-two boys enrolled in the Red Bluff high school during the year just closed, only four are using tobacco habitualiy Two of these, although they have been with us for three years, have done less than two years of work and have done that badly As far as getting an education is concerned they are hopelessly lost. The other two are deficient in their work and will only help to swell the records against to- bscco.
 The Red BlufI records can in all probability be duplicated in any high school in California
 The people stand behind any movement against the tobacco evil So do the newspapers. The legisla ture has done what it could. It is your time at the bat, Mir. School man and here's to you for a good eyo' and a safe hit"