The efforts of Miss Hardy and Mr. Sulzer, the eighth grade teachers, were successful because they attacked the force which set the example. Imitation grows into habit rapidly, and when both imitation and habit are allowed to become cumulative, it takes more than a logical protest to change conduct. In one case, the bad example was displaced by one which was made more attractive than the old model; in the other, public conscience was aroused and used as an agency for the elimination of the bad example. The worst kind of a bad example is that of older people who connive at an evil. ILLUSTRATION 3 (HIGH SCHOOL) The following letter from a correspondent of the I. A. D. Teachers’ Club also has a bearing upon the control of smoking on the school grounds: [Sidenote: Boy Is Caught Smoking] I was principal and high school teacher in a little school down South. One of my most interesting pupils was also the most difficult to manage—Herbert, a bashful, overgrown, intelligent, fourteen-year-old, the ringleader in all mischief and the idol of the playground. One of the grade teachers caught one of her boys smoking cigarettes one day. Upon investigation three other culprits were discovered among her charges, but it seemed that Herbert was also guilty. The nature of the case and the custom in that state demanded that the younger boys be whipped, but I knew that Herbert was more truly responsible and my heart was heavy, for I had worked hard to gain his confidence and I was fond of the boy. A mistake on my part would make him sullen and unmanageable and the smoking would then go on in spite of me. After school was out, I dispatched the younger boys as quickly as possible, asking Herbert to wait in another room for me. He was very sober when I came in and I was wondering how to begin the difficult task ahead of me, when a glance from him gave me a clue. It was defiant, appealing and apologetic, all at the same time. The boy and I had been somewhat like chums up to this time. “Herbert, tell me all about it, won’t you?” I began. “I want to hear just how it happened and how much smoking there has been.” “There hasn’t been very much,” he said, with his eyes down. “We’ve smoked dry leaves and corn shucks, but we’ve only smoked real tobacco twice.” He was on the defensive at once, I saw, but his confidence was in a measure restored by my opening—giving him a chance to tell his side of it. I drew him out, not condemning him, but merely looking very grave, until I had a full account of just when and where the smoking had occurred. I did not insult him by doubting him and he gradually lost his defiant attitude and grew more and more shame-faced. “Herbert,” I said, when the recital had come to an end, “what would your father say?” “He would lick me until I couldn’t stand up.” This was literally true, for the boy’s father was a hard drinker and subject to violent fits of anger when his children displeased him.