The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1888-01-26
.HAzINe AND ITS REMEDY.
Tho Evil Boing Traditional and DeeI
Seated REQUIRES Heroic Treatment.

Tho Evil Bcing Traditional and Deep
Seated Requires Heroic Treatment.
The evil is deep seated and has its tap
root in the past. 1t is traditional. The
older colleges, if they are blessed, are
also cursed with traditions. And college
traditions are easily born, and die hard.
These disorderly tendencies are not only
inherited from the past in this country,
but from the mother country also. The
extent of their survival there sny be seen
in the hazings, fightings and midnight
maraudings with which ''Toin Brown
at Rugby" is overweighed. They have
survived, with additions, in As,erican
colleges. Members of advanced classes
promptly instruct the younger classes
what is always done, and what, there
fore, they are bound to do. The newer
men aspire to be as ''smart" as their pre-
decessoIs, and so they must have hazing,
rushes, 'bloody Monday" freshman
beer, reciprocal Mornings, small maralld-
ings, ard what not? The effect of these
foolish traditions at one particular staas
of the college course, in the sudden but
transient transformation of o consider
able number of well minded and we'll
hammered young men, is something as
unfailirg as it is surprising and othervvise
unaccolmtable. ...,a
sdedp p'pd pie saa tR eRs @lsos popafisn i 3
banded together to detect and punish
wrongdoing. In college communities the
case is reversed; the combination is to
prevent detection. 1t is seldom the case
that one student will give information
| concerning another that might lead even
| to his reformation. And when it be-
comes apparently question of penalty,
not only viii young men of no principle
disregard the truth, but men of high
principle will generally leave college
sooner than aid in rectifying the wrong.
In one case, where it became alike neces-
sary for the safety Of father and son that
the father should know Of the notorious
habits of intoxication into which the son
had fallen, he went away Convinced OF
gross injustice done by the faculty to the
young man, because he was informed by
classmates that the statements were un-
true. 1t should be said, however, that
one of these classmates, after graduation.
had the manhood to come to college
officer and say; 81 lied to Mr.. -"
In another instance, a case of assault
upon a professors house, whole class,
including, with one exception, all its best
men, were induced TO agree beforehand
that they would not answer any question
as to their own whereabouts at given
time-though many of them We're quietly
studying in their rooms-lest the circle
of inquiry should thus be narrowed to-
ward the offenders; and they submitted
| to suspension rather than answer the
| question. Illustrative facts of this kind
| might be accumulated 70 any extent.
| But it is not necessary. Every college
man can bear witness t, the general state
of the case.
After young men have been fully and
fairly warned that they will be held
amenable to the law of the land. the ap-
plication Of tho law is not to be with
holden. This remedy has sometimes
been applied with excellent effect. In
one case the victim waited till his tor
mentors disclosed themselves and brought
him before magistrate. One of them
proved to be a son Of the chief justice OF
the state, and the settlement was easy
and lasting. In another college two
young men, under arrest for gross vio-
lence, fed and never put in an appear
ance again.
In a third institution certain college
rioters, sons of wealthy parents, lay in
the lookup while their class YVES gradu-
ating. These are hard ranedies, TO the
last degree undesirable, pat the abuses
are still more undesirable, and il al other
educational influences provo Intellectual,
staen the law ns,sst he.tlse essaeateas Tsae
application of the remedy in q few ia
stances would render further application
unnecessary.-The Forum.