Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-12-08
Relic Of Barbarism Abolished,

,, Alter many years of agitation an,
vain attempts at it's abolition, a NOV
that promises to amount to somethin,
has been taken looking towards dom,
away forever with hazing in America,
colleges. The honor belongs to Prince
ton' whence so much good in raising tn,
morale of college life has ONE in tn,
past; and it is not too much to saw tina
the hearty thanks of every educator il
n a n are due to "Old Nassau" fo,
the noble action of her students in re.
solving to abolish hazingfr O Princeton
forever.
For decades, yes, for centuries, it has
beer regarded as eminently fitting and
proper that first year students in the
hlsher institutions of learning both in
Great Britain and the United States
should be subjected to indig
hlty and abuse, as the most approved
way OF initiating them into collegiate
lie. This barbarous custom no doubt
was a reflection among the older SIN
dents of the mean and despicable treat
ment so often given smaller boys by
larger ones at school. The great prepar-
atory schools in England and in the
more noted universities practiced haz-
ing upon the younger and inexperienced
pupils and students, it would seem from
time immemorial, and often with an in
tensity never to be forgotten by the suf-
ferers and only to be re-practiced by
then upon the generation of students
Immediately succeeding. In the United
States, hazing has been at times car
RED to a shameful extent, and frequent
~ ave the papers had occasion to
chronicle painful accidents, maimings
for life, and sometimes fatalities. as the
outcome OF this wretched time hon
ored CUSTOM"
FRESHMEN have been visited in the
night by more or less drunken sopho-
mores, pulled from their beds and sub
Jected to indignities and brutal treat
ment that in any other surroundings
would have called for the use of a six
shooter. Freshmen have been carried
off into the country, their hair shaved
half Off and left to grope their way home
as best they could in the cold with only
their night clothes on. A freshman of
the class of 81 at Yale was lowered by
a rope over a railroad bridge while a
train passed underneath, and the hot
steam and cinder laden blast blackened
and burned the sufferers skin and de-
stroyed his clothes. A Cornell student
was walked into an excavation and kill
ed while being "chaperoned' by sopho-
mores; the chapel seats of the freshmen
at Princeton We're daubed with thick
pitch one morning, and some 20 pairs of
trousers were ruined in
Sophomores have visited freshman
quarters, turned the entire place upside
down, and destroyed considerable prop
erty in so doing: freshmen have had
their windows smashed, have been per-
sonally assaulted both on the streets
and in their rooms, have been deliber-
ately robbed of their belongings, COM
PEELED to "set up the drinks to their
tormentors, buy suppers for them and
andure many other such annoyances.
AT the United States military and naval
hazing has beer pushed to
most unnatural extreme until the
expulsion of whole classes was threat
in punishment. A very promis-
ng nephew of the late Lieutenant Swat
IA, the explorer, vas so maltreated at
Annapolis that he died soon after, and
he commanding officer merely reported
hat the youth had been the victim of
"a little horse play" At West Point the
most outrageous conduct has been more
less winked at by the authorities, as
his breaking in was considered promot-
We of development of the more hardy
side of the cadets nature. The expe-
hence of the colored cadets in particu- I
has been a blot on the good name of
he institution, and the case of Cadet
will never be forgotten. 1t
las taken a long, long time to realize
hat there is nothing manly or brave in
resumption upon the youth, inexperi- +
nee or weakness of others. 1t is not t
My an outrage upon the victims, but '
is debasing to those practicing it, and {
men braggarts and DULLES rather a
han gentlemen. e
OF late years a healthy public senti- n
lent has exerted such an influence that
evil has been largely diminished, 4
nd now comes this most praiseworthy
nd noble action of Princeton students.
4et Yale, Harvard, Amherst, Dart
Columbia and other great COL
egiate institutions follow quickly in the t.
footsteps of old Nassau" and set their G
of condemnation on and bury for
yer one of the worst and most repre- g
customs ever attached to col
,ge or school life. u