Said my boy to me: “I know a chap who smokes cigarettes; and he does a hundred yards in eleven seconds.” “That’s too bad,” said I, “for just so sure as he does it in eleven seconds with the cigarette handicap, he could do it in ten and a half without it. And if this boy is running for an organised athletic department like that of a college or an established club, the training rules will forbid him the use of tobacco for a certain period before the day of the contests. Ask any athletic coach about tobacco and he will tell you to ‘cut it out.’ Ask any physician about it--even one who is himself a smoker--and he will tell you that no matter how strong and well a growing youth who smokes may be, he would be a good degree stronger and better if he did not use tobacco. You would like to arrive at manhood, as nearly physically perfect as you can, wouldn’t you? You have not as yet acquired a taste for tobacco, have you? Well, then, do you not see that by abstaining from it you have something to gain and absolutely nothing to lose? Let tobacco alone until you are twenty-one. I might better say twenty-five, for that is the accepted age of maturity. But we will put it at twenty-one and perhaps by that time you will add a few years’ more abstinence of your own volition.” Mothers, do not go beyond facts in pleading against the cigarette. Do not tell your boy that cigarettes contain opiates, because they do not. I have been through dozens of cigarette factories and have followed the process of manufacture from the raw leaf to the finished article. The better grades contain absolutely nothing but pure tobacco of the mildest kind. In the cheaper grades a little harmless glycerine is sometimes used to relieve the harsh taste of the tobacco. No harmful drugs are employed. The paper wrappers are purer and less irritating than the tobacco. Cigarette paper is the purest paper manufactured. The danger of the cigarette is, first, that its cheapness appeals to the boy who would not think of buying cigars; and second, its very mildness encourages the young man to increase his smoking until he drifts into excessiveness without knowing it. Consumed in moderation, it is the least harmful form in which tobacco is used. But cigarettes or cigars, or tobaccos in any shape whatever, are not good for the growing boy.