The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-11-06
From the Scientific Americana
Secret Societies Among College Students.

From the Scientific Americana
Secret Societies Among College Students.
Mortimer NJ. Leggett, the youngest
son of the Commissioner of Patents and
a student of Cornell University, was re-
Gently accidentally killed during the
progress of his so-called initiation into
the mysteries of college secret society
known as Kappa-ALphas. The circum
stances were that the deceased went with
a party of members of the above fra
ternity to creek just outside the town
of Ithaca and there. blindfolded. he
was left, with two companions, standing
on the brink of a gorge through which
the stream runs Shortly after, a crash
ing of bushes, followed by groans, was
heard, when the remainder of the party,
fastening to the spot, found that the
three boys had fallen over a precipice
some fifty feet in hight. Young Leggett,
it seems, struck on his head, sustaining
such severe injuries that death ensued in
half an hour, while the others were both
seriously hurt. 5s
As one of these college fraternities has
thus been the indirect means of causing
this terrible calamity, we desire just
here to express our opinion on the sys-
tenn of secret societies as generally prac-
These associations are bodies of students,
organized in principle something after
the orders of free-masonry or odd-fellow-
ship. In many the members are num-
bered by hundreds, and chapters of a
single society often exist in score of
colleges at once. The records are handed
down from class to class; and out of each
set of freshmen, a few individuals are Sc
lected for the privilege of membership.
When the plan was started During, we
! believe, the year 1920 the idea was
simply to form clubs of young men, for
mutual improvement in debate and such
kindred studies as are better pursued by
numbers than by single persons, and to
keep alive, among alumni, pleasant asso-
Citations of college life. In course of time,
the former innocent and laudable object
has been lost sight of, or rather relegated
to other associations, now existing in
many colleges and not included in the
list of secret societies; while the cardinal
principle of the younger chapters of the
latter organizations seems to be nothing
more nor less than simple mischief, rem
dered attractive by little mystery and
concealed under the cloak of such cogno-
mems (symbolized by Greek letters) as
union of souls, "circle of stars "lovers
of wisdom" etc. If the boyish nonsense
resulted in the usual students pranks, it
might be passed over with a smile but
such is not the case. The influence ex-
erted, upon boys fresh from school and
for the first time free from direct home
influence, we believe (from repeated in
stances within our personal knowledge,
and in connection with one of the oldest
colleges in this country to be in high
degree baneful and demoralizing. Unless
a youth has well filled pockets, Tin which
10 of 70
who shall secure him, or rather his
money! he is not invited to membership
at all. Once joined, however, and held
by working upon his fears through the
blasphemous oaths of secrecy that he is
forced to take, he is inducted. by sheer
force of example, through a routine of
profanity, intemperance and gambling;
while in many cases, if young and inno-
cent, his course leads to graver faults,
committed more through sense of
shame and false pride than depravity,
and due to the tacit if not open instiga-
tion of his unscrupulous elders.
The sad and untimely fate of Mr. Leg
gett, just at the outset of doubtless a bril-
liant and honorable career in the calling
which his father has so nobly adorned,
WILL from the circumstances under which
it occurred, excite a lively and wide
spread sympathy. 1t is the first death,
which, to our knowledge, has been owing,
though indirectly, to the proceedings of
these student organizations; though we
have heard of numerous cases of maim-
ing and injury thus caused, and of idiocy
and cerebral disease due to the effect
of hideous and CHASTITY paraphernalia
upon the imagination of weak minded
boys. s--.-
There is a notion, which is becoming
entirely too prevalent, that colleges are
merely convenient places for sending
young men to while they are passing
through that uncertain and troublesome
age, leading to manhood, during which
they are expected to SOW their tradi-
tional wild oats. To this idea, we be-
lieve, may be mainly ascribed the barbar-
tiles of "hazing," and the no less repre-
hensible practices of secret societies;
while to it also may be traced many of
the complaints that our seminaries are
inferior in an educational point of view
to those of foreign countries. Hazing,
already crushed out in the government
naval and military schools, is exciting so
large a share of public condemnation
that there is a fair prospect of its stern
repression in colleges generally. The
secret societies, we trust, may meet here
after with similar treatment, at least
through the influence of parents if not at
the hands of faculties. Harvard forbids
their existence among her students, and
Cornell at this time would do well to
follow her example.