GREGG] HYGIENE AS NATURE STUDY 135 



ly injurious. And upon another point there is practical unanimity, 

 and that is, that if the tobacco habit could be eliminated entirely 

 from mankind civilization would profit by it in many ways and 

 lose in none. The writer holds with many others, that it is 

 therefore a proper subject to consider in a public school course 

 on hygiene, while admitting that the teaching thus far has not 

 been highly efficacious, though still worth while. 



If one sets out to ask his tobacco-using friends why tobacco 

 is used and what benefits come from it, he will get almost a hun- 

 dred diiYerent answers from a hundred different users of the 

 weed. Not that there are a hundred benefits, but that there is 

 little positive argument for its use beyond the fact of a certain 

 soothing effect that is said to attend its use. Ask these same 

 one hundred friends, how they came to be users of tobacco, and 

 they will nearly all agree that it was the social influence and sug- 

 gestion that impelled them to it. The problem of the schools, 

 then, is one of establishing a strong enough counter social in- 

 fluence, if its teaching on this subject is to become effectively 

 embedded in the lives of its pupils. Here as elsewhere in hygiene, 

 the more effective appeal is social rather than individual. 



The following simple studies are offered as a partial basis 

 of departure in the study of tobacco and the tobacco-habit, but 

 the teacher is urged to be on guard lest she make the work with 

 tobacco and its discussion a source of positive and indirect sug- 

 gestion of the very end she wants to avoid. Let the justification 

 for the studies be an effort to supplement the efforts of the home 

 in preventing fourth and fifth grade pupils from contracting the 

 tobacco habit, an end with which every rational parent will be in 

 hearty accord. 



A. The Nature-Study Approach. 



/. A study of the tobacco plant. 



(a) Secure a small packet of tobacco seeds and give the 

 pupils an opportunity to examine them through a simple magni- 

 fying glass. 



(b) Provide a suitable receptacle and start some of these 

 seeds to growing. They will germinate and develop sufficiently 

 to be of interest to the pupils while their later studies of tobacco 

 are being made. 



(c) Many greenhouses will have some species of these 

 plants growing, and here a plant can be obtained for examination 

 and study. Note the generally disagreeable odor of the plant, 

 particularly of a crushed leaf. Something of the history of the 

 plant may well come in at this point, supplied by the teacher. 



