Alcohol and tobacco really occupy but a very small share of the interest and attention of even those men and women by whom they are habitually used. Hygiene, on the other hand, is of constant, uninterrupted concern. Why, therefore, should it be planned to have alcohol and tobacco displace the broader subject of personal and public hygiene in the attention and interest of children throughout the school life? Beyond the text-book and schoolroom a thousand influences are at work to teach the social evils, the waste of energy, and the unhappiness that always accompany the excessive use--and frequently result from a moderate use--of stimulants and narcotics. Of the many reasons for not drinking and smoking, physiology gives those that least interest and impress the child. The secondary effects, rather than the immediate effects, are those that determine a child's action. Most of the direct physiological effects are, in the majority of instances, less serious in themselves than the effects of overeating, of combining milk with acids, of eating irregularly, of neglecting constipation. Were it not for the social and industrial consequences of drunkenness and nicotinism, it is doubtful if the most lurid picture of fatty degeneration, alcoholic consumption, hardened liver, inactive stomach lining, would outweigh the pleasing--and deceiving--sensations of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes.
The strong appeal to the child or man is the effect these habits have upon his mother, his employer, his wife, his children. The vast majority of us will avoid or stop using anything that makes us offensive to those with whom we are most intimately associated, and to those upon whom our professional and industrial promotion depends. Children will profit from drill in and out of school in the science of avoiding offense and of giving happiness, but unless the categories--_acts that give offense_ and _acts that give happiness_--are wide enough to include the main acts committed in the normal relations of son, companion, employer, husband, father, and citizen, those who set out to avoid alcohol and tobacco find themselves ill equipped to carry the obligations of a temperate, law-abiding citizen.