The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-11-27
AVIEW OF COLLEGE LIFE
Evanston (1ll.) Educator Points
Out It's Evils.
SAYS RowDY1sM Is GLoR1r1ED.

SAYS RowDYIsM Is GLoR1FIED.
Principal Henry l.. HOLLYWOOD De-
clares Athletic Contests Are Too
Often Made the Excuse For Gam
bling, Drunkenness and Theft-Ath-
letics Said to Be lnjurins Secon-
Diary Schoo1s-Fraternities Called
Bad.
"What others call rascali-
ty and cowardly brutality college men
call fun"
Nearly 300 educators, practically all
Of them college men themselves and
many of them connected with leading
western universities. stood aghast at
the words. But the speaker. Henry l..
Boltwood, principal OF the Evanston
Qll.) township high school. had even
more to say, says the Chicago Tribune.
He criticised college life from almost
every possible viewpoint and angle.
Mr.. Boltwood was the last speaker at
The conference of secondary schools.
which recently closed in Evanston.
Education in the early days" Mr..
Boltwood began, was the ~prerogative
of the priests, and few probably real
ize how largely school and college life
today is shaped by the usages and ira
ditions of the monastery and the &C.
c~lesiastics. The dormitory, early norm
ing prayers, the exclusion of married
students, the prominence still given to
logic and linguistics in the curses of
study are the survival not of the fit
test, but of the long established Gus
toms of the %cloister.
"More generally existing, even in
divorced from the church, is the no
ton that college students are a privi-
legged class and as such exempt from
amenability to civil law and too often
from the laws of common dignity and
civility. At any rate, students are
prone to think they are amenable to
their faculty only, whatever may be
the nature Of the offenses they may
commit.
"In college life and college con-
science outrages which under the civil
law are punished with fine and inn
prisonment and subject the offenders
to public contempt are regarded as
matters of boasting, and a false com
munity sentiment shields offenders
| from exposure and punishment. {
''This idea of special class privilege,
reaches outside of the college into the
lower schools, and the rowdyism, vul-
garity and theft of college men are
glorifed. A college athletic contest is
too often made the excuse for gam
bling, drunkenness, theft and open
robbery, plundering restaurants, de-
frauding railroads, interfering with
the rights of the travelling publlc,
breaking up theaters and mobbing Leo
turers. q
"What others call meanness, rascal
ity and cowardly brutality college men
call fun. To call pilfering spoons, dish
es and sofa cushions and signs fun
is to put on a false label, but it does
not change the character of h act.
1.-The hazing, the mischief, the bet
lluS Ou dllllCtlCS, Liz uSC VI uAIoNA u
pulous meal to secure good marks or
to keep on athletic teams the dishon-
est men whose chief merit is their
proficiency in athletics, the lowering
of the standard Of honor in eXamina-
lions, all have a corrupting influence
upon preparatory schools.
among the bad things which the
oN1lo~N SO Hf,,,.,,i,,n avnr, tn tho SncOn1-
airy schools are the secret societies,
which are multiplying to an extent
that calls for the attention of all ed
ucators. Within ten years there have
sprun| up in the public schools at
least a dozen Greek letter societies,
which are cheap limitations of college
fr%aternities, especially in the things
in which the college fraternities are
most at fault. From personal expert
ence l find much harm and little good
in these school societies. They en-
courage clannishness and self conceit
and are subversions of school and class
spirit. Loyalty to the society axes
the place of loyalty to the school.
"Each new society affords preteXts
for additional social functions and ex-
ira expenses. School athletics suffer
from the attempts of societies to give
their own members prominent posi-
tons. Ridiculous and even dangerous
limitations are practiced, and scholar
ship is left out of the question. They
are utterly foreign to the equality
which ought to exist in a public school,
where all class distinction should be
laid aside and nothing count but merit.
'"The self conscious air of pride with
which fraternity boys and girls ignore
the outside '%barbarians,' who are often
their intellectual and moral superiors,
Is simply eXasperating. In this direc-
kion the girls are worse than the boys,
or perhaps the girls feel the social
Sights more. keenly. Mothers with
toors in thar owes foil of tho haartlnSS