, 1888-01-13
HAzlNa AND ITS REMEDY.
The Evil Being Traditional aud Deep
Seated %Iiequires Heroic Treatment.

inc EVIL BcInE Traditional aud Deep
Seated T;equires Heroic Treatment.
The evil is deep seated and has its tap
root in tho 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 may be seen
in the hazings, tightings and midnight
maraudings with which tom Brown
at Rugby" is overweighed. They have
survived, with additions, in American
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-
decessors, and so they must have hazing,
rushes, ''bloody Monday" freshman
beer, reciprocal Mornings, small maraud-
ings, and what not? The effect of these
foolish traditions at one particular stage
of the college course, in the sudden but
transient transformation of a consider
able number of well minded and well
hammered young men, is something as
unfailing as it is surprising and otherwise
u~naccountable.
In other communities it is the acknowl-
edged rule that the whole population is
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-
comma auporaptlu N Or,action ~ napolf-
not only will 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 DO said, however, that
one of these classmates, after graduation,
had the manhood to come to O college
officer and say: II lied to Mr.. -"
In another instance, u case of assault
upon a professors house, a whole class,
including, with one exception, all its best
hiNhV WV NeNS ~ o6lCO bOAOlClld41t
that they would not answer any question
as to their own whereabouts at a given
time-though many of them were 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 to any extent.
But it is not necessary. Every college
man a bear witness to 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 the law is not to be with
holden. This remedy has sometimes
been applied with excellent effect. In
n case the victim waited till his tor
mentors disclosed themselves and brought
him before a magistrate. One of them
proved to be n 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 VIC
lence, fled and never put in an appear
ance again.
In n third institution certain college
rioters, sons of wealthy parents, lay in
the lookup while their class was gradu-
ating. These are hard remedies, K the
last degree undesirable, but the abuses
are still more undesirable, and if all other
educational influences prove Intellectual,
then the law must be the educator. The
application of the remedy in u few in
stances would render further application
unnecessary.-The Forum.