Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-08-14

determined mood would pass and the
''plebe" would spring to attention at the
sound of the dreaded footstep on the tent
floor, as subservient and as cowed as ever.
The long camp drew to close. We
hailed with JOY the time when we would
not have to fin out and depress our toes OF
Keep rigidly erect at table. We knew that
arter the battalion got into barracks and
academic duties began we would not be re-
quired to clean other mems equipments. But
if we supposed that our privileges were to
be considerable we we're very much mis-
taken.
Discipline Perverted to Annoyance.
We marched to meals in column, with a
line of file closers as at drill These men
kept up continual clamor, calling out to
plebes to ''Get your shoulders back" "Drag
in your chin!" A certain amount of this
setting up was good and necessary, but
here again military discipline was per-
verted to means of groundless annoyance.
There were some cadet lieutenants and SER
geants VINO abused nearly all fourth ella S.
men constantly while in ranks. To march
down to dinner before one of these fellows
was enough to spoil ones appetite for the
meal to follow.
class men to Jump" 'plebes" after the
battalion had left camp. still it was often
done in particular cases of spite. AT times
there would be feeling in the corps that
the fourth class men were getting too inde-
pendent, and then they were not safe from
insult at any time. The most common form
of annoyance was calling after fourth class
man in loud voice to ''Stand up" 'Keep
your eyes to the 'front.'" Certainly words
would fail to convey the depth of irritation
that lay in such phrases uttered with the
customary compartment of insulting
looks and threatening manner.
The Dickey Practices a. Harvard.
Not long ago the newspapers we're loud
against certain practices OF certain society
at Harvard We heard about awful brand
ings to which candidates for admission were
subjected during their period of probation,
and we were told of silly little prosecutions
those who would be initiated must undergo.
1t seemed to great many very respectable
people quite q serious question whether
such customs should be allowed to continue,
and yet all these torments were accepted
voluntarily, and their duration was less
than week. No one was ever seriously
hurt BY them. They we're very foolish.
They were little more severe than the
collegiate hazing of which so much is spoken
in condemnation. And yet neither they
nor the hazing as now practiced at the
larger colleges lnVoiVeQ physical injury
or very much humiliation. 1t was a small
dose quickly swallowed. Far different in
deed is hazing at the National Military
Academy.
There it is serious evil 1t is in some
sense a national evil, for it affects every
man in the corps of cadets, and so ulti-
mately the whole body of the army.
Here is wrong, and certainly there
should be remedy. When the great Cuff
in "vanity Fair, was rating his little fag
Osborne Dobbin came upon the scene, and
surely we never liked Dobbin better nor
Tom Brown better than when each sent out
his manly little protest against an obscure
wrong. Thackeray and Tom Hughes and
most of other sensible men and women
wrote against and fought against the fag-
ging and bullying system in the English
schools 1t long ago fell in rear of the
times and perished. 1t perished. too, at
Yale and Harvard, Princeton and Colum-
bia, Williams and Wesleyan time i'm
memorial. It would be strange if even
from West Point public opinion, sustained
and well directed, could not eradicate it,