The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1911-01-13
LAXITY IN MORALS.
Mont Catholic University Life De-
clared to be Bad.

At a meeting of the western Sec
tion of the Northern Illinois Teach
ers' Association DR.. g. Stanley Hail.
president of Clark University, Massa-
chusetts, made the following state
ment:
Reports from thirty of our Oldest
colleges indicate that the moral con-
ditions of the students in most OF
our universities is indescribable.
This condition exists more in the
East than through this section"
This is fair arraignment of the
sort of education given to thousands
of young Americans. Instruction of
the mind is the end and all of non
| Catholic colleges. The heart and
soul are rarely considered Coming
as the statement does from such an
educator as Doctor Hall, it merits
strong attention.
There has always been more or
less reason to believe that the life
! led by young men in the secular uni
versities has not squared with Chris
tian conduct. Removed from the
restraining influences of home and
answerable to the college authori-
| ties for their conduct only during
recitation time, it is little wonder
that young fellows find fertile op-
portunities to SOW wild oats. And
when we take into consideration that
most of the youth who attend nom
| Catholic colleges and universities
have no settled form of religious be-
| lief, the wonder is that any of them
escape a life of license.
The Catholic boy, therefore, who
is thrown into such an atmosphere
cannot escape it's vitiating odor.
His character must be pretty strong
ly developed, his moral sense the
finest and his will power the tirmest
if he would go through four years
of college life in a nOn-Catholic in
stitution and preserve his morals un-
tainted. Is it fair to ask young men,
raw and untried, to become para
gons of virtue as soon as they leave
the high school? Can we blame
them if they go far astray when col
lege officials disclaim responsibility
for their conduct?
If Doctor Hall had asked for re-
ports from any number of our Cath
Ollie colleges, he would have receiv-
ed replies that would have delighted
his heart. Not that all boys in Cath
Ollie colleges are angels, nor that the
Catholic colleges can make over and
turn into saints young fellows who
had been allowed at home to act
pretty much as they please; but the
example of what religion does for
men, as eXemplified in the lives of
their professors and the constant
urging to better things which is
poured out in the Christian doctrine
classes and from the pulpit must
fa11nuT'c moral
and direct it right. Add to this the
disciplinary regulations enforced in
all our Catholic colleges, rules which
are founded on the right govern
ment of the young men in their own
homes, and you have an ideal code
for conduct in youth to be found in
every Catholic college in the land.
At the University of Notre Dame, for
instance, there is a rule which pro-
hibits the introduction of intoxicat-
ing liquors on the grounds. Any
student who is detected using liquor
is subject to expulsion. In order the
better to safeguard the young men
at Notre Dame, the university Off
ciaIs have an advertisement which
runs the year round in the papers of
South Bend, where dealers are warn
ed that they will be prosecuted and
punished to the full extent of the
law if they are known to sell intox-
icants to any boy at Notre Dame;
and this warning is rigidly lived up
to.
1t would be interesting to learn
how many of our non-Catholic col
leges would place about their stu
dents similar safeguards. If they
should do so, the rowdyism in col
leges that we read so much about in
the newspapers would be at an end.
The Catholic colleges guarantee to
stand in place of the parent; the
non-Catholic colleges make no such
guarantee.