In the past fiscal year there were smoked in the United States nearly two million cigarettes more than in any previous year of the nation’s history; and the consumption of distilled spirits, exclusive of wines and beers, broke the record of the preceding year by twenty-three million gallons.

Now, there is nothing particularly remarkable about these figures except as they signify that we, as a nation, are smoking and drinking considerably more than we used to, which in turn suggests the question: To what extent are our boys responsible for the increase? I’m sure I don’t know, and I can’t see any way of finding out. But I do know, from daily observation, that the tobacco and strong drink habits are formed in boyhood more commonly than there is any need of. I do know that a great many young men acquire a taste for cigarettes and whiskey while yet in their teens, purely through lack of the proper parental influence and instruction.

To me this seems pitiable, especially because it is so obviously unnecessary. The parents’ duty is clear. It is amenable to a hard and fast rule to which there need be no exception, from which there should be no deviation. The boy should be made to abstain from liquor and tobacco until he is twenty-one.

How can you keep him from them? Facts, logic, reason. By these means and only these, can you get the boy on the right track and be sure that he will stick. Threats, coercion, exaggerations, bribes or pleadings will accomplish nothing dependable. At this stage in his career you can tell him what to do, but you must also tell him why.

A lady once said to me: “You believe that the parent should live according to the principle he teaches the child. Then, how can you deny your son tobacco, with a lighted cigar between your lips?”

The answer to this brings us to the nib of the tobacco question. The child is put to bed at seven o’clock, although the parents may not retire until eleven. The child takes milk at breakfast and the parents may have coffee. The father may devote ten hours of the day to work, but this would not be well for the child. Many things that the man may do with impunity are not good for the growing boy.

This is exactly what I tell my boy, and he sees the logic of it: While a boy is growing he should take nothing into his system that is not nutritious and he should particularly abstain from anything that may retard the development of his bodily organs, even in the slightest degree. Every pulsation of the heart, every expansion of the lung cells, every function of the nerves must do its work unimpeded while the frame is lengthening and broadening into the proportions of a man. Once the frame is completely developed the organs merely have to renew the old tissues. But during the growing period they have not only to renew the old but to create additional flesh, blood and bone to meet the demands of the increasing bulk. There are two chemicals in tobacco, pyridine and nicotine, that have a restraining effect upon the heart, lungs and nerves. If you give them the additional burden of carrying off these two poisonous chemicals, the building up of the tissues is sure to suffer. If you do not feel bad results from it in youth, you will certainly feel them in later years.

Said my boy to me: “I know a chap who smokes cigarettes; and he does a hundred yards in eleven seconds.” “That’s too bad,” said I, “for just so sure as he does it in eleven seconds with the cigarette handicap, he could do it in ten and a half without it. And if this boy is running for an organised athletic department like that of a college or an established club, the training rules will forbid him the use of tobacco for a certain period before the day of the contests. Ask any athletic coach about tobacco and he will tell you to ‘cut it out.’ Ask any physician about it—even one who is himself a smoker—and he will tell you that no matter how strong and well a growing youth who smokes may be, he would be a good degree stronger and better if he did not use tobacco. You would like to arrive at manhood, as nearly physically perfect as you can, wouldn’t you? You have not as yet acquired a taste for tobacco, have you? Well, then, do you not see that by abstaining from it you have something to gain and absolutely nothing to lose? Let tobacco alone until you are twenty-one. I might better say twenty-five, for that is the accepted age of maturity. But we will put it at twenty-one and perhaps by that time you will add a few years’ more abstinence of your own volition.”

Mothers, do not go beyond facts in pleading against the cigarette. Do not tell your boy that cigarettes contain opiates, because they do not. I have been through dozens of cigarette factories and have followed the process of manufacture from the raw leaf to the finished article. The better grades contain absolutely nothing but pure tobacco of the mildest kind. In the cheaper grades a little harmless glycerine is sometimes used to relieve the harsh taste of the tobacco. No harmful drugs are employed. The paper wrappers are purer and less irritating than the tobacco. Cigarette paper is the purest paper manufactured. The danger of the cigarette is, first, that its cheapness appeals to the boy who would not think of buying cigars; and second, its very mildness encourages the young man to increase his smoking until he drifts into excessiveness without knowing it. Consumed in moderation, it is the least harmful form in which tobacco is used. But cigarettes or cigars, or tobaccos in any shape whatever, are not good for the growing boy.

Mothers, this is the truth about tobacco, and this is what you should tell your boy. Do not say that cigarette smoking leads to the penitentiary or the madhouse, because it doesn’t, and the boy knows better. The principal of my boy’s school walks by every day with a cigar in his mouth. He is near seventy and a good citizen. Do not say tobacco creates an appetite for strong drink, because it is not true, and the boy will not believe it. Do not say that smoking wrecks the nervous system, because in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it does nothing of the sort, and the boy, who is constantly observing the man, will not be convinced. Tell him the plain truth as I have written it, and he will see the consistency of your reasoning.

Strong drink is no relative of tobacco. The only similitude between the subjects is that they are both unnecessaries, if I may coin the word, to the boy’s career. I have little to say about strong drink, because, while it is a matter of vital importance to the boy, it is a problem which our mothers appear to have pretty well in hand. The great majority, I believe, proceed on the theory that alcohol is not good for anybody, is ruinous to many, and, therefore, should be kept out of the home and away from the boy. There are a minority, however, who reason differently—thuswise: That drink is not harmful except to those who make it so by excessive use; that the boy who is carefully guarded against it in the home will the easier fall a victim to it when he gets beyond the home influence and the home restraint; and, per contra, that the boy who is permitted to become familiar with the use of it moderately in the home, will acquire temperance at the same time and be the better fitted to combat with its attending evils when he eventually goes out into the world.

To the majority first mentioned I have but this to say: Go on; you are doing well.

But to this minority I want to say: Stop! For the love of the God who made you, stop! You are on the wrong track. And I’ll tell you why.

If alcoholism were only a habit, like the use of tobacco, there might be a thread of practicability in your line of reasoning. But alcoholism is more than a habit—it is a disease. There are alcoholic wards in the hospitals, there are sanitariums devoted exclusively to persons afflicted with it, there are physicians who specialise in the treatment of it. Some people are immune to it; others are not. I am, it so happens, and perhaps you are—but is your boy?

Science has lately ascertained that none are born consumptives. Some may be born with a tendency for the disease, or they may be born without that tendency and subsequently acquire the disease. The same is true of alcohol.

I have no reason to believe that my boy would be particularly susceptible to tuberculosis. Nevertheless, I do not propose to expose him to it. His window is kept open while he sleeps, he is encouraged to spend much time out of doors, he is given breathing exercises daily, he is taught to take precautions against infection when near any one afflicted with the disease.

Nor have I any grounds for believing that my boy has inherited the condition that develops alcoholism. Looking back into his ancestry, I find some non-abstainers but no drunkards. I, his father, am absolutely immune to it. Neither a total abstainer nor, in my youth, even a temperatist, I have walked arm in arm with it, but found nothing to attract or allure.

But does this justify me in deliberately exposing my boy to it?

I do not know how he is equipped for it and there is no way of ascertaining. You can take your boy to the doctor and he will tell you whether or not his condition is favourable to consumption. But alcoholism is more insidious. Physicians can diagnose it but they cannot foretell or forestall it. There are some sanitariums for alcoholism, but there are no preventoriums.

“But,” I am told, “if it is in him it will come out sometime. Might it not better show itself under the watchful eye of the parents, rather than after the boy has gone out from the home?”

If it is in the boy, then every year that will put breadth to his shoulders, brawn on his arm, pride in his heart, judgment into his head and force into his character, makes him better able to cope with the disease. No, no, a thousand times no! Do not have on your soul the guilt of giving your boy his first taste of wine.

We must consider latent alcoholism as a possibility in bringing up our boys. Remember, alcoholism is not a habit only, but also a disease. It is much more prevalent than smallpox, but for alcoholism there is no vaccine; science offers no preventive serum. It is your sacred duty, then, to prevent the contact, to keep out the contagion until your son has his full growth and strength, and it is your duty to tell him the situation as I have outlined it, so that he may know the real danger of rum.

Then, if the tendency is not in him, nothing has been lost, and if it is in him, you have brought him to man’s estate well equipped to give the evil a fair fight for supremacy.