knowledge, and superficial habits of continued reasoning. His leisure
moments are absorbed in the sense-gratification of the weed. But if as
much attention had been given in acquiring the habit of reading as had
been given in learning the use of tobacco, the most valuable of all
habits would take the place of one of the most useless of all habits.
When we see a person trying to read with a cigar or a pipe in his mouth,
Knowing that nine-tenths of his real consciousness is given to his
smoking, and one-tenth to what he is reading, we are reminded of the
commercial traveler who "wanted to make the show of a library at
home, so he wrote to a book merchant in London, saying: "Send me
six feet of theology, and about as much metaphysics, and near a yard
of civil law in old folio." Not a sentimentalist, a reformer, nor a crank,
but Dr. James Copeland says: "Tobacco weakens the nervous powers,
favors a dreamy, imaginative, and imbecile state of mind, produces
indolence and incapacity for manly or continuous exertion, and sinks
its votary into a state of careless inactivity and selfish enjoyment of vice."
Professor L. H. Gause writes: "The intellect becomes duller and duller,
until at last it is painful to make any intellectual effort, and we sink into
a sensuous or sensual animal. Any one who would retain a clear mind,
sound lungs, undisturbed heart, or healthy stomach, must not smoke or
chew the poisonous plant." It is commonly known that in a number of
American and foreign colleges, by actual testing, the non-user of
tobacco is superior in mental vigor and scholarship to the user of it. In
view of this fact, our Government will not allow the use of tobacco at
West Point or at Annapolis. And in the examinations in the naval
academy a large percentage of those who fail to pass, fail because of the
evil effects of smoking.

Tobacco drains the pocketbook. "Will you please look through my
mouth and nose?" asked a young man once of a New York physician.