ke are nearly all unruly and disobedient in school. And
he says again, that boys who get their lessons well and stand high in
grammar-schools take lower marks in high-school if they begin to smoke
in high-school. This ought to be enough to make any boy stop and think
before he begins to smoke, for it shows that it not only hurts a boy's
mind, but his morals also.

I think the reason most boys take up smoking is not because they like
it, but because their schoolmates do it, and they want to be one of "the
crowd." When you boil that down it means either that a boy wants to be
smart, or else he has not courage enough to stand alone; that is, he is
a coward.

You would not think much of a boy who was about to enter a race and,
just before he entered it, hurt his foot on purpose, so that he could
not run his best, would you? Well, that is just what every boy does who
smokes: it hinders him in the race of life. You ought not to smoke
before you are twenty-one years old, because your body is not strong
enough to stand it. The safest way is not to smoke at all, but at least
don't smoke until you get your growth.

TIRE-TROUBLE

People who own automobiles have a great deal to say about
"tire-trouble." There are a great many kinds of tire-trouble. In the
first place, a tire often gets punctured by a nail running into it. Then
there are "blow-outs" caused by the inner tube giving way. Then there
are leaky valves, by which the air slowly leaks out. There are also
sand-blisters, caused by little particles of sand getting into the tire
and making a swelling in it, which soon gives way. And finally tires may
get rim-cut, which means that the steel rim which fastens them on wears
them through by rubbing. The result of these things is what is known as
a flat tire with all the air gone out, and the automobile bumps on the
hard rim.

Boys and girls have tire-troubles, too. I have seen boys and girls get
so vexed about things that they just exploded in a burst of temper like
a blow-out in a tire. I have known them to run up against something
sharp and difficult which took all the buoyancy out of them, just like a
nail causing a puncture in a tire. I have known them to tell a lie,
although nobody else knew it, and it bothered them so inside that it was
like sand on the inside of the tire causing a sand-blister. I have known
them to fret about things so that all their enthusiasm leaked away just
as the tire that had a leaky valv