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Vicious Phases Of College Life

Vicious Phases Of College Life image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
December
Year
1903
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

By HENRY L. BOLTWOOD, Principal Evanston (III.) High School

IN college life and college conscience outrages which under the civil law are punished with fine and imprisonment and subject the offenders to public contempt are regarded as matters of BOASTING, and a false community 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, VULGARITY AND THEFT OF COLLEGE MEN ARE GLORIFIED. A college athletic contest is too often made the excuse for gambling, drunkenness, theft and open robbery, plundering restaurants, defrauding railroads, interfering with the rights of the traveling public, breaking up theaters and mobbing lecturers.

What others call meanness, rascality and cowardly brutality COLLEGE MEN CALL FUN. To call pilfering spoons, dishes and sofa cushions and signs "fun" is to put on a false label, but it does not change the character of the act.

DOES OUR COLLEGE YOUTH SEEK ANY HIGH IDEAL? IS GENUINE MANLINESS EXALTED ABOVE PHYSICAL STRENGTH, SELF DENIAL ABOVE INDULGENCE, RIGHT ABOVE MIGHT, LAW ABOVE LAWLESSNESS?

The hazing, the mischief, the betting on athletics, the use of unscrupulous means to secure good marks or to keep on athletic teams the dishonest men whose chief merit is their proficiency in athletics, the lowering of the standard of honor in examinations, all HAVE A CORRUPTING INFLUENCE UPON PREPARATORY SCHOOLS.