Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-12-21
hazlng.

wesleyan SODnOmOreS COr1aleu
dozen freshmen last nght and took
them to the cemetery, where they com
PEELED them Ito disrobe until they were
nude. When they were finally stripped
they were severely padded They
were then forced to sing and to recite
Latin and Greek poetry. Each failure
resulted in a renewed padding.
Sometimes they take student out
and hold him under a pump; some
times they attach a rope to his feet
and drag him over the ground until
his clothes are worn out; sometimes
they compel him to drink tobacco
sauce; sometimes he is ordered to take
his wash list and sing it to the tune
of Yankee Doodle;" sometimes they
put him in a barrel and roll him down
hill; sometimes he is stripped of cloth
ing and tied fast to a tree; sometimes
his sensitiveness is tested by jabbing
hot pokers against his bare skin, and
in short there is an infinitude of play
full pranks to which the new student
at many of our institutions Of learning
is subjected. Strange to say, the out
side public and many of the newspap-
ers object to this, and it is by some
supposed that the faculty also object.
To many of the dispatches giving an
account of these hazings a paragraph
is added saying that the faculty intend
to make a rigid investigation.
1t is a popularity of faculties that
they never make any investigation un-
til after the hazing is over, and that
they scarcely find anything about it
having happened until it is published
in the newspapers. They know that it
is a necessary part of education, but
when the newspapers make a fuss
about it they concede something to ig-
norant public sentiment and say they
will investigate. Sometimes they do
actually investigate, and even go so far
as to announce that bazing has been
stopped in the institution over Whicn
they preside. There are some people
who. not understanding education, sup
pose that they are really powerless to
stop it. This, according to all the ev-
idence, is "a mistake. There is moth
ng to prevent them from using the
cnme methods with the perpetrators of
such playful antics as are used by the
ignorant outside public, who are not
engaged in educational work.
That tney do not use such methods
leads to the unavoidable inference that
they really approve of the practice and
consider it necessary part of the cur
riculum and Indispensable in teaching
the young idea how to shoot. The
student knows this. He doesn't go to
the faculty or the officers of the insti-
tuition. They would pretend to be
shocked but he knows that such a
course would only subject him to a
new course of hazing and that he
would have no protection. The vulgar,
common man outside of the colleges
goes to magistrate when he has been
hazed and the hazer gets the worst of
it, but not SO in the college. The haz-
ing is to teach the youth honor, and it |
is a part of honor to submit to assault
and battery and to seek no redress. ex-
cept to show the honorable and high
minded feeling that has been inculcat-
ed through this ordeal by drubbing
SINE other helpless and defenseless
youngster who has as yet taken no les
sons in This school of honor.
The outside public keeps on howl
ing, therefore, and the schools and col
leges and military academies keep on
hazing. Of course it occasionally hap
pens that one of the subjects of this
educational process is killed; but what
good cause was ever forwarded without
sacrifices? There must be martyrs in
every great work. The most benefi-
cient undertakings often call for the
lives of some who are engaged, either
voluntarily or invountarily, in for
warding them. Those who conduct the
schools, though they have eyes to see
and train faculties to investigate, fail
to see the hazing. They can discover
microbes a thousand of which could
dance cottillion on the point of a
needle, but they cannot see 40 students,
each of whom weigh upward of 100
pounds, assembling to mob a weak, !
embarrassed, strange freshman or
plebe.
OF course they do not see what they
do not want to see, or do not try to see,
The state of public knowledge and in
telligence has not as yet advanced to
the proper stage for all of them to OPP
emily advocate the universal adoption of
hazing, hut doubtless some time that |
era will arrive. Then when a bunch |
of new lawyers are added to the bar |
ua NAV avnant tha oldar rnpnnba IN |