Smoking Rules

During the 1890s when Concordia was still at Murtoa in Victoria, school rules were clearly defined for both mature age theological students as well as much younger boys beginning their secondary education. 
One particular rule stands out: Students shall not at any times smoke in the classrooms or dormitories. No student under the age of 18 years shall be permitted to smoke.

In fact the smoking habit became a preoccupation for several generations of writers for the Brown and Gold magazine.
In a full page article in 1927 Elmore Zweck meditates on a momentous event in his life. He had turned 20, the then legal age at the college to indulge in smoking, and he felt that his ‘health warranted a pipe.’ He chose a beautifully polished stringy bark model costing one shilling which he came to regard as ‘a good companion and an excellent friend’.  He believed that ‘tobacco, in moderation, has added much to the pleasure of human existence. If you find that tobacco weakens your nerves, gives you palpitation of the heart, or debilitates the stomach, well – give it up.’
It appears that pipes were seen as status-boosting coming-of-age accessories. Several formal photos from the first decades of the 20^th century show senior students clasping their prized possessions in their hands or between their teeth!

Students were not the only ones with the habit. The 1938 Brown & Gold has the following notes: ‘Smoke issuing from every crevice of the library – the college board is meeting…..Acrid smoke billowing into classrooms – the gardener is at work.’
In 1944 a full page article entitled What a fag! discusses the merits of pipes, cigars and cigarettes before advising the reader not to smoke; while the 1957 Brown & Gold reveals a healthy changed attitude to smoking. ‘Far from the healing powers once attributed to it, tobacco is today being earmarked as the cause of one of the deadliest diseases of mankind…. Perhaps in smoking, or rather in the giving up of smoking, is revealed the amount of will power most of us have or have not.’