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to keep the young from forming the habit; college “smokers,” where free cigarettes and cigars are furnished, should be superseded by “rallies,” where the same amount of money could provide some light and harmless refreshment.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.