Mothers, this is the truth about tobacco, and this is what you should tell your boy. Do not say that cigarette smoking leads to the penitentiary or the madhouse, because it doesn’t, and the boy knows better. The principal of my boy’s school walks by every day with a cigar in his mouth. He is near seventy and a good citizen. Do not say tobacco creates an appetite for strong drink, because it is not true, and the boy will not believe it. Do not say that smoking wrecks the nervous system, because in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it does nothing of the sort, and the boy, who is constantly observing the man, will not be convinced. Tell him the plain truth as I have written it, and he will see the consistency of your reasoning. * * * * * Strong drink is no relative of tobacco. The only similitude between the subjects is that they are both unnecessaries, if I may coin the word, to the boy’s career. I have little to say about strong drink, because, while it is a matter of vital importance to the boy, it is a problem which our mothers appear to have pretty well in hand. The great majority, I believe, proceed on the theory that alcohol is not good for anybody, is ruinous to many, and, therefore, should be kept out of the home and away from the boy. There are a minority, however, who reason differently--thuswise: That drink is not harmful except to those who make it so by excessive use; that the boy who is carefully guarded against it in the home will the easier fall a victim to it when he gets beyond the home influence and the home restraint; and, _per contra_, that the boy who is permitted to become familiar with the use of it moderately in the home, will acquire temperance at the same time and be the better fitted to combat with its attending evils when he eventually goes out into the world. To the majority first mentioned I have but this to say: Go on; you are doing well. But to this minority I want to say: Stop! For the love of the God who made you, stop! You are on the wrong track. And I’ll tell you why. If alcoholism were only a habit, like the use of tobacco, there might be a thread of practicability in your line of reasoning. But alcoholism is more than a habit--it is a disease. There are alcoholic wards in the hospitals, there are sanitariums devoted exclusively to persons afflicted with it, there are physicians who specialise in the treatment of it. Some people are immune to it; others are not. I am, it so happens, and perhaps you are--but is your boy? Science has lately ascertained that none are born consumptives. Some may be born with a tendency for the disease, or they may be born without that tendency and subsequently acquire the disease. The same is true of alcohol.