The Portland daily press., 1874-06-01
The Situation at Bowdoin.

It is probable that considerable portion of
the students who left Brunswick on account
of the drill instruction will return under the
propositions made in the circular of the Fac
ulty-especially under that provision which
offers an honorable discharge at the close of
the current term to those who shall return to
college and submit to all established regnla-
lions until that time. This will secure re-
ception at any college in the country Of those
who finally conclude to leave and the young
gentlemen have undoubtedly found on re
Election and intercourse with their parents
that the sacrifices involved in leaving college
irregularly are greater than they had realized.
The proposal of the Faculty is in the nature
of compromise and the students can accept
1t without dishonor, as the submission to the
obnoxious regulation need be but temporary
and for valuable consideration-the honor
able dismission.
We have felt constrained to deprecate the
ly of the two classes which entered after the
Inauguration of the military department and
voluntarily accepted the situation. They
could have attained their purpose as effectu-
ally by regularly and decorousy asking for a
dismission, which would have been as for
midable in the way of menace and would
have presented the question of the drill to
public on its merits. However, impetuosity
is an incident of youth and these boys had
petitioned and demonstrated until their
patience was exhausted. There is danger
that the severe criticism which their action
has evoked may obscure the real question
now at issue-the expediency of maintaining
the military department at Bowdoin. This
is question in which the people of the
State are interested and the en.eute may be,
on the whole, useful by calling public atten.
ton TO it..
1t has been noticeable that of all the jour-
mails which have commented on the situation
very few have had any words of commenda-
ton for the drill per Sc: and the lack of ap-
proval is still more marked in private discus
sion. The tendency to fuss and feathers, or
as the Boston Herald neatly calls it, "the
exhibition element" which has marked the
present administration of the college, has
aroused a very general distaste and has been
the subject of infinite fest and derision,
which has undoubtedly influenced to con-
siderable extent the feeling of the students,
who naturally object to being made part of
ridiculous show. The public consider the
military parade as entirely out of place in a
literary institution, especially as compul-
sorry feature, and the high sounding patriotic
bounce about the necessity of intoxicating a
military SPIRIT" which has proved the curse
of every nation where it predominates, will
hardly convince them to the contrary. Be-
sides, theorizing on the subject is entirely
superseded by the practical result at Bow
dom, where it has been tried under the most
favorable circumstances and where every
student, but two, in the three classes affected
have preferred the extreme resort of severing
their college relations rather than participate
in what they intensely believe to be a de-
grading farce. 1t is nonsense to assume
that these boys areMiss Nancys or are abnor-
mally indolent and spiritless. They probably
have as good an average of manliness, spirit
and promise as former sets of students have
possessed. They may be technically wrong
in their outbreak but they are undoubtedly,
in the main, as good fellows as "the boys Of
our time"
1t would be wilfal and culpable obtuseness
on the part of overseers and trustees to ig-
more the dangers of the situation. The loss
of three classes, which is certain to follow if
the drill be maintained, is very serious; and
parents would hardly venture, in the future,
to send their boys to college with require
ment, whose Consciousness has been SO con-
clusiveIy demonstrated. Everybody wLo has
the welfare of Bowdoin at heart should exert
all possible influence to remove this incubus.
The alternative involves the very life of the
institution. The people of the State also
have rights in the matter and should not be
deprived OF the advantages of Names old
est college, nourshed by her bounty and in
timately identified with her history, for the
sake Of anybody's fancy for show.
1t is reasonably safe to assume that the
drill will be abolished, for few will be found
to defend it after the lesson of the late events
has been learned Thus the revolt of the
boys, reprehensible in itself, will result in
good and it is to be hoped that they will now
behave with becoming dignity and propriety
and suffer the seed which they have sown to
proceed quietly to fruitage.