Page:The High School Boy and His Problems (1920).pdf/204

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are going to college with the idea of doing honest, satisfactory work is to leave the drinking of intoxicating liquors to those who have no real interest in the development of their moral and intellectual powers, for the drinking habit will invaribly play havoc with your college work, not to speak of your morals.

Smoking, too, although it can scarcely be called an immoral habit, has upon nervous and growing young fellows a bad effect. It is likely to develop restlessness and indigestion with the result that your power of concentration is weakened, your brain dulled, and the likelihood of your doing good work very much lessened. The habit of using tobacco is in these days so common among young men that it seems almost a waste of time to speak against it. I have, however, seen too many nervous systems weakened by its use, and the work of too many students injured irreparably, not to utter a word of warning against it. Though the number of young fellows in college who smoke is regrettably large, you will gain nothing either in prestige or dignity by doing so. The ability to hold a pipe between the teeth or to puff at a cigarette does not make you more of a man even in a college community, and the fact that you do not smoke brings you into no discredit. No one need to say that he was forced into smoking in college or that he was made uncomfortable by refusing to do so. If you find, therefore, that smoking is injuring your temper and your pocketbook and your studies, give