PHYSICAL AND INTELLECTUAL VIEW. 35 



passed, while only forty-eight per cent of the boys 

 could enter, the difference being ascribed to the 

 stupefying effect of tobacco. 



A prominent teacher in Syracuse writes : " After 

 long experience, I have come to the conclusion 

 that many boys from all departments of the public 

 schools become incapable of prolonged mental 

 effort, and are lacking in refinement and in interest 

 and attention to school duties, in consequence of 

 the use of tobacco, and that very many of the fail- 

 ures in promotion from year to year are due to the 

 same cause." 



The testimony on this point, both as to our own 

 and foreign countries, is clear and overwhelming. 

 Statistics obtained from European institutions show 

 that lads whose standing had been good before they 

 began to smoke or chew were invariably found, 

 after they became addicted to either habit, to fall 

 below the school average. 



In 1862 the Emperor Louis Napoleon, learning 

 that paralysis and insanity had increased with the 

 increase of the tobacco revenue, ordered an exam- 

 ination of the schools and colleges, and finding 

 that the average standing in both scholarship and 

 character was lower among those who used the 

 weed than among the abstainers, issued an edict 

 forbidding its use in all the national institutions. 



The investigation of the public schools of France 

 by medical and scientific men has been very thor- 

 ough. M. Bertillon reported some of the results 

 in the Union Medicate. Facts as to the Polytechnic 



