(7) _Smoking on the school grounds._ Sometimes it is impracticable to change the example except by changing the giver of the example. If a fine boy or girl can be made the leader where a weak or vicious one has been leader, wonderful changes may take place. Such a change was effected in the following instance. CASE 70 (SEVENTH GRADE) [Sidenote: Cigarettes] The practice school of Bodeling College was so good that large numbers of boys and girls came out by streetcar from the neighboring large city to attend it. These boys and girls took the cars at a convenient station near the campus, where an enterprising business man had built a Station Store, which furnished textbooks, stationery and refreshments, and gave shelter in bad weather. This store was a great convenience, but the college authorities found it also much of a nuisance, for here a group of “smart” high school and town boys gathered, to loaf and smoke and set a bad example to the smaller boys in many ways. The grammar grade teachers found the cigarette evil especially hard to deal with. The seventh and eighth grade boys, seeing their elders swaggering about with cigarettes, imitated them freely. There were a number of fine high school boys who did not smoke, but they rarely went home as soon as the smokers, and so the smaller boys saw most of the smoking set. Miss Steele, the seventh grade teacher, went to Miss Hardy of the eighth and they had a conference. At its close, Miss Steele announced her program: “I’m going to appeal to plain reason; I shall show them so clearly that they can’t fail to understand how cigarettes hurt them in every way, and then appeal to their sense of loyalty to themselves and their future. When they know how cigarettes rob them of health and ability, their good sense will dictate to them what to do.” Miss Steele planned her campaign well. She was a large, plain, wholesome-looking woman, a good thinker and a notable figure in all movements for public welfare in her community. Her pupils all respected her, and her school-room management was above criticism. She planned and delivered now a series of talks on cigarettes, in which she explained clearly just why they are so especially harmful to the young and what a losing game the cigarette-smoker plays. Her pupils all listened closely, the smokers with the rest. When she had exhausted the subject, she asked all those who were resolved never to smoke cigarettes to raise their hands; for she had had successful experience with the effectiveness of a public pledge. Every pupil in the room but one raised his hand. This one pupil was the son of a prominent attorney, a smoker and a leader among the boys. His father had instilled in him so keen a sense of honor that, because he did not intend to stop, he refused to make the promise.