COLLEGE MEN’S HONOR
Such abuses of liberty, as well as nearly all other college delinquencies, can be largely prevented by a consistent appeal to the undergraduate’s sense of honor. Recently I asked the president of a North Carolina college what he regarded as the chief characteristic of American students. He replied promptly, “College honor.” At Princeton, at the University of Virginia, at Amherst, and at many other institutions, the honor system in examinations arranged and managed by students, represents the deliberate intention of the undergraduates to do the square thing. These laws, which the students voluntarily impose upon themselves, are enforced more vigorously than the rules of the faculty.
A few years ago I visited a university at a time when the entire undergraduate body was deeply stirred over a matter that involved college honor. A senior of high standing socially and intellectually, the son of a prominent family, high in popular favor, was overheard to use disrespectful language to his landlady. The senior was summoned before the student committee having charge of undergraduate affairs, confronted with the charges, allowed to make answer, and, being found guilty, was asked to leave the institution. His family and friends, incensed by this demand, which seemed to them both harsh and unjust, appealed to the faculty for redress. The chairman of the faculty replied that the matter was entirely in the hands of the students. Application was then made to the student committee to present the young man’s side of the question to the whole college. The student council readily acceded to this request, saying that they were perfectly willing to consider the charges more at length, as their only desire was to be absolutely just. When he went up for a new trial the young man’s family engaged a lawyer. The student body also engaged counsel. The trial was held in one of the largest halls in the university town, and virtually the whole student body sat through the evening and far into the morning listening to the presentations of both sides. A judge who told me of the incident said that during those hours, looking into those student faces, he did not remember seeing any man change his expression, but that every one sat in the attitude of seeking only the truth. The jury, which was chosen from the faculty and from impartial men in the town, found that the young man had actually used the words attributed to him, and therefore pronounced him guilty of the charge.
A few months ago an incident occurred at a Southern college that impressed me deeply. At one of a series of meetings which I was holding, a student rose and said that he wished to make confession to the student body. He had recently won the sophomore-junior debate, but wished to confess that he had gained it unfairly. He had overheard his opponent rehearsing his debate in an adjoining room, and although he stopped his ears and refused to listen, his room-mate took down the points. Afterward, the debater said, the temptation was so subtle that he took the notes, arranged his own debate accordingly, and won. “But,” he said with deep feeling, “I stole it, and I have come to plead the forgiveness of the student body.”
Very early the next morning a young man called at the house where I was being entertained, to tell me that he was the room-mate who had taken the notes mentioned in the confession. He, too, wished an opportunity to speak to the students. At the public meeting that evening, before three hundred college men, he rose and told of his all-night fight for character on the college campus. He described the humiliation which he saw confronting him if he should tell of his part in the dishonorable proceeding, and said:
“I was helped by a power beyond myself to make a clean breast of it. I am here to tell the students that I, rather than the man who spoke last night, should take the blame for stealing that debate.”
I do not remember ever having witnessed such deep feeling, or heard such applause in any assembly, as greeted that sturdy confession. It was a triumph of college honor and integrity, rooted in manhood, conscience, and religion.
Amateur College Theatricals