PROBLEM 230 257 



Problem 229 : To consider some harmful habits. 



a. Tobacco 



Method. — Allow the smoke from half a dozen cigarettes to 

 pass through the water of a small jar containing a goldfish, or 

 add a small piece of tobacco to the water. 



Observations. — What is the result? 



Conclusion. — Might tobacco have any similar effect on other 

 living things, as man? 



b. Alcohol 



Method and Observations. — Using the figures given in your 

 Civic Biology, on pages 363, 369, 370, 371, explain why life insur- 

 ance companies consider moderate drinkers an extra risk. 



Conclusion. — What effect does the drink habit have upon 

 man? 



Problem 230: How to go to work to form good habits. 



Method and Observations. — Study the following statement : 

 " The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no 

 worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by ha- 

 bitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the 

 young but realize how soon they will become mere bundles of habits, 

 they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. 

 We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone. 

 Every smallest stroke of virtue or of vice leaves its never-so-little 

 scar. The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses 

 himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, ' I won't count this 

 time.' Well ! he may not count it ; but it is being counted none 

 the less. Down among his nerve cells and fibers the molecules 

 are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him 

 when the next temptation comes. Nothing we ever do is, in strict 

 scientific liter alness, wiped out. Of course this has its good side 

 as well as its bad one. As we become permanent drunkards by 

 so many separate drinks, so we become saints in the moral, and 

 authorities in the practical and scientific spheres, by so many 

 separate acts and hours of work. Let no youth have any anxiety 

 about the upshot of his education whatever the line of it may be. If 



HUNTER LAB. PROB. 17 



