The boy at the rear end of a lighted cigarette has little chance of obtaining a position from a business man. Even the telltale yellowish discoloration of the fingers and the cigarette stench of his breath give sufficient warning for the employer to inform the applicant that he is not wanted. It takes a strong body and a clear mind to succeed in competitive business. The boy handicapped in the race of life by the cigarette habit is in the same condition as the sprinter who is hopelessly handicapped in a hundred-yard dash; neither has any chance of winning. John V. Farwell, the Chicago merchant, is quoted as saying: “I would as lief employ a boy who steals sheep as one who smokes cigarettes. One is no more to be trusted than the other.” To the same effect is this warning of a well-known English physician: “A boy who early smokes is rarely known to make a man of much energy and character and he generally lacks physical and mental as well as moral energy.” This subject is big with importance for the boy’s future. It is one of the great boy-problems and it should be discussed frankly by father and son before puberty, soon after which period so many boys acquire the habit. It may be difficult for the father, with a cigar in his mouth, to persuade his son that tobacco is injurious, but whether the father is a smoker or not, a thorough discussion of the subject in all its aspects is sure to prove beneficial. As the boy at this age is in the hero-worship period and as his heroes in early adolescence are always athletes, an appeal to his innate longing to attain physical perfection and athletic distinction will be found more potent than the appeal for mental or moral perfection, although the latter should not be neglected. The additional grounds of abstinence from motives of personal purity and self-respect have their effect, although the argument that he should not needlessly cause annoyance or discomfort to others has little weight with a boy prior to the reflective period. If such warning is given to the boy before he contracts the habit it will usually prove effective. Some parents conclude their instruction with the statement that the son, on attaining his physical maturity at approximately twenty-four years of age--when the danger of nicotine poisoning on the growing boy has passed--may then make his own decision as to whether he will or will not smoke.