Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/182

176 The type of student referred to by Dr. Butler is a good fellow, he dresses well, has a generous allowance, belongs to a fraternity and tries to "make" some varsity team; he elects courses partly because they are easy and partly because the instructor is popular; he spends much time in social intercourse and athletics, and gets few high marks, mainly because he does not try to get them. This is the student who smokes, because he has the time, the money and the opportunities to indulge in the practise.

The non-smoker usually belongs to another type of student. He is the scholar who is ambitious for rank. Many students of this type earn part or all of their expenses by tutoring and other remunerative work; many of them hold free scholarships and must maintain high rank in their studies to retain them. Students of this type have little time for athletic training or social life of fraternities, and therefore few opportunities and incentives for indulging in the practise of smoking.

There are three points of interest brought out by this study:

1. College students who acquired the smoking habit before entering college are about eight months older at entrance than the non-smokers. Three factors are probably responsible for this difference in age: (a) all scientists who have studied the physiological effects of tobacco upon man and animals are agreed that it has a depressing influence upon the heart and circulation, also, that anything which interferes with the vigor of the circulation has a retarding effect upon growth. It is therefore possible that smoking may retard, both physical and mental development; (b) the age seventeen is the time when most boys begin to smoke, if for any reason a boy is older than the average when he enters college, there is more than an even chance that he will have acquired the smoking habit in the secondary school, and (c) the type of student described above who is primarily interested in social life and athletics, is found in secondary schools as well as in college; three out of four of such students smoke, and they are usually graded low in their studies, these facts would account for a higher average age among entering freshmen who are smokers.

2. The physical measurements of freshman smokers are slightly above those of the non-smokers, and the smokers gain more than the non-smokers during the first two years in college, except in lung capacity. These figures are susceptible of misinterpretation unless three important facts are taken into consideration. (1) The smokers are 8 months older than the non-smokers; their measurements should be slightly larger on that account. (2) It was shown that smokers belong to a class of students having larger means and therefore a more favorable physical environment—better nutrition, etc.—than the non-smokers; their measurements should be larger on that account. (3) It was shown that smokers participate in athletic exercises more than the