Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-06-09
Aanraster fntelugenrer.

Lancaster fntelligenrer.
THURSDAY EVENING. JUNE Q, 1881.
Ietheds OF Government
We believe that once before now, in
the Langan matter, we had occasion to
criticise and condemn the conduct OF
DIR. Brooks. That was his individual
act and it is not now defended by him or
his friends. So that we may consider
that the position we took on that occa-
sion is conceded to have been substan-
TALLY right. Evidently, at least, DR..
Brooks and the Millersville faculty did
not consider it to have been maliciously
taken, as in the presentation of their
present case in our columns yesterday
by one of the professors we are conceded
to deservedly have a high reputation
for honesty and liberality in discussing
public questions.
That reputation we sedulously en-
deavor to merit and with it one also
for franxness. We aim to form a sound
view on every public question proper for
discussion and to express it, whoever
it may hurt. A second time within the
year the conduct of the Millersville au-
thorities and students comes under pull
lie criticism, and we have again reached
the conclusion that the action of the
school authorities was wrong. That &C
tion, We are now advised, was taken
deliberately by the faculty and was not
that of DR.. Brooks alone. The faculty
defend and maintain it. 1t is, therefore,
not DIR. Brooks only, but the entire
faculty of the school, who fall under our
condemnation, and that of those who
agree with us. This does not make us any
less resolute in giving it, though it does
cause us to carefully consider the ground
upon which we base our judgment.
1t is not to be disputed that subOrdi-
nation must exist in successful school.
But subordination is not properly sought,
nor is it obtained by an arbitrary exercise
ofpower, when those who are ruled are no
longer in the unreasoning years of infancy
but have even attained the full growth
OF man and womanhood. Regulations
that will successfully control young men
and women must be wise and reasonable !;
and teacher who undertakes to teach
others how to be teachers most lament
ably fails in his mission when he under
takes to declare that obedience is best
wrought by force, and when he exhibits
himself as SO deficient in judgment as to
formulate an unwise rule, and find him
self compelled to enforce it against
formidable rebellion for no better reason
than that it is necessary to maintain his
authority at all hazards.
The donkey can do that; and while we
do not mean to be understood as saying
that the Millersvillc professors are
donkeys, for they are not, we do say that
it is but donkeyish trait to undertake
to maintain unwise action to sustain i'm
agined dignity.
Manifestly the whole question rests
upon the wisdom of the rules
that the students revolted against.
And it must be conceded here
that the normal school teachers
have an unusually delicate and diff
cult charge, in conducting the co-educa.
tion of the sexes. Still it is a charge
they have undertaken, and they must Ike
judged according to their performance of
it. That their success has heretofore been
great simply shows that their present
failure is not inherent in the system but
that either students or teachers are in
fault. The past success is as compli-
mentary to the one as to the other,
and cannot control us in placing the
fault of the disturbance of to-day.
That has come from what is admitted to
be an increased stringency in the rules
governing the conduct of the students
of the opposite sexes. Those rules we
do not care to criticise, as we are not
probably sufficiently well informed to do
SO. But we certainly agree with the ia
Guilty that they should be SO strict as to
prohibit not only evil, but the appear
ance of it and we agree again that any
student whose conduct he such as to
asperse the fair fame of the school
should be promptly expelled from
it. In this rigid holding of every
student to accountability for his or
her behavior, and unrelentingly punish
ing any deviation from strict propriety of
conduct, we would have, we think, am
pie weapons to maintain the repute of
the institution without finding it neces-
sary to prescribe a regulation which
would keep relatives and even friends
from meeting on proper occasions under
the sun and the shade of the school
lawn.
But our great complaint of the facul-
ty of this school comes not from any
seemingly unnecessary regulations of |
the intercourse of the students, but from
their monstrous claim that they have a |
right to prohibit the men and women
they seek to educate from expressing in |
a proper place and a proper way their
opinions about the regulations to which
they are subjected. 1t isa high privilege
of the American citizen to speak his /
mind, subject to the control of the libel |
laws. 1t is a privilege never denied to |
the American student in any college to
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