The Days of a Man 



D86 7 



Attitude 



toward 



alcohol 



Cards 



George F. Swain of Harvard to his graduates in 

 Civil Engineering, "Let your competitors smoke," 

 seems to me good sense. 



In the matter of alcohol my theory has been as 

 rigid as my practice. Accepting the validity of 

 conventional temperance arguments drawn from 

 physiology and the need of social sanitation, I press 

 the case still farther. The sole purpose of alcoholic 

 drinks is to force the nervous system to lie, and thus 

 to vitiate its power of recording the truth. Men use 

 alcohol, weak or strong, to feel warm when they are 

 really cold, to "feel good" without warrant, to feel 

 emancipated from those restraints and reserves 

 which constitute the essence of character building. 

 Alcohol is a depressant, not a stimulant, appearing 

 as such only because it affects the highest nerve- 

 operations first. 



Its influence impinges alike on the three chief 

 mental functions, sensation, reason, motion. It 

 leaves its subject uncertain as to what he sees or 

 feels, hazy as to cause and effect, and unsteady as 

 to resultant action. No man of high purpose can 

 afford to endanger the validity of these nerve 

 processes which register his contact with reality. 



As to cards, in deference to my mother's wish and 

 because of my own conviction, I never touched them 

 until after leaving college. With me personally it 

 was not a question of right and wrong but a saving 

 of valuable time for better things study, athletics, 

 and outings. 



In my sixteenth year Mr. Jenkins preached a 

 sermon on the need of man for a divine revelation. 

 To this discourse I remember listening with what 



C 48 H 



