Attitude change public education

The lessons, then, of the successful effort to reduce tobacco use by minors are that an intense public education and awareness campaign can work if, at the same time, there are limits on the opposition s ability to market young people to use potentially harmful, addictive substances. In addition, attitudes toward a public health problem can be changed over time with consistent messages from government agencies, combined with laws and policies that restrict access to the substance, make it expensive to purchase, and inconvenient to use. 

Among other less precipitous ways of keeping the citizenry virtuous and vigilant was the education of the public. One of the chief aims of civic education was the inculcation of attitudes of skepticism toward tradition and the past, and even toward the Constitution itself. Inasmuch as the veneration of historical documents could be used to inhibit change, Jefferson chided those who looked upon constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched, adding that... 

---