Statistics taken with care at many American colleges
show with apparent conclusiveness that the use of
tobacco is physically and mentally deleterious to
young men. [Footnote: See, e.g., in the Popular
Science Monthly for October, 1912, a summary by Dr.
F. J. Pack of an investigation covering fourteen colleges.
Similar investigations have been made by several others,
with generally similar results.] It seems that smokers
lose in lung capacity, are stunted slightly in their
growth, are lessened in their endurance, develop far
more than their proportion of eye and nerve troubles,
furnish far less than their proportion of the athletes
who win positions on college teams, furnish far less
than their proportion of scholarship men, and far more
than their proportion of conditions and failures.
It is perhaps too early to be quite sure of these
results; but in all probability further experiment
will confirm them, and make it certain that tobacco
is physically harmful as has long been recognized
by trainers for athletic contests. The harm to
adults seems to be less marked; perhaps to some it
is inappreciable. And if there is appreciable
harm, whether it is great enough to counterbalance
the satisfaction which a confirmed smoker takes in
his cigar or pipe, or any worse than the restlessness
which the sacrifice of it might engender, is one of
those delicate personal problems that one can hardly
solve for another. But certainly where the habit
is not formed, the loss of tobacco involves no important
deprivation; its use is chiefly a social custom which
can be discontinued without ill effects. Effort
should be made to keep the young from forming the
habit; college “smokers,” where free cigarettes
and cigars are furnished, should be superseded by “rallies,”
where the same amount of money could provide some light
and harmless refreshment. This is not one of
the important problems. But, after all, everything
is important; and men must, and ultimately will, learn
to find their happiness in things that forward, instead
of thwarting, their great interests; what makes at
all against health and efficiency-when it is so needless
and artificial a habit as smoking, so mildly pleasant
and so purely selfish-must be rooted out of desire.
The great amount of money wasted on tobacco could be
far more wisely and fruitfully expended. We shall
not brand smoking as a sin, hardly as a vice; but
the man who wishes to make the most of his life will
avoid it himself, and the man who wishes to work for
the general welfare will put his influence and example
against it.
H. S. King, Rational Living, chap. VI, secs. I, ii. J. Payot, The Education of the Will, book iii, sec. IV. J. MacCunn, The Making of Character, part ii, chap. II. W. Hutchinson, Handbook of Health. L. H. Gulick, The Efficient Life. F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book iii, chap. III. T. Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life. P. G. Hamerton, The Intellectual Life, part I.