College discipline: an inaugural address delivered at Davidson College, N.C., on the 28th February, 1855

AN INAUGURAL ADDRESS

DELIVERED AT

BMnnSSOM (G(0)IL1LIE«, M. (Go,

On the 28th February, 1855,
BY Major D. H. HILL,

PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS AND CIVIL ENGINEERING.

PEINTED AT THE WATCHMAN OFFICE.
1S55.

372.^

f'f

Davidson College^ N. C, March Ist, 1855.

Major D. H. RILL.

Sir : At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Davidson College,
held last evening, it was unanimously resolved, that a Committee be appointed
to request of you a copy of your able and very interesting Inaugural Address,
for publication.

We were appointed that Committee, and in discharging the duty assigned

us, beg to add our individual wishes to those of the Board, that you will comply

with the request.

Yours very truly,

R. H. LAFFERTY,
RUFUS BARRINGER,
DAN'L. COLEMAN.

Davidson ColleO£, March 1st, 1855.

Messrs. LAFFERTY, COLEMAN, )
AND BARRINGER. ^

Gentlemen : I hereby place at your disposal a copy of my Inaugural
Address, in compliance with your kind and flattering request to have it pub-
lished.

Permit me to tender through you, gentlemen, my heartfelt thanks to the Board
for this mark of their confidence, and to offer to you, as their Committee,
my acknowledgements for uniting your individual wishes with those of the
Body to which you belong.

With great respect,, your ob't.. servant,

D. H. HILL,

INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

Gentlemen oe titfi Boaeb op Trustees ;

You have been pleased to call me from a noble and time-honored
Institution, in part founded by, and bearing the name of, the Father of
bis Country, and have invited me to cast in my lot among you, and to
labor in the College over which you preside.

I left a warm-hearted, generous, hospitable people, distinguished for
their intelligence, piety, and high-toned principles ; I left a Board of
Trastees, whose unvarying kindness and con6dence, no gratitude of
mine can ever repay ; I left a Faculty, whose venerable head, I revered
as a Father, and with whose junior members, my intercourse was that
of a brother ; I left a College, the character of whose students was
such that during six years, I received not a single mark of discourtesy,
or disrespect.

Surely then, in v^e'w of the many pleasant attendants upon my life
in Virginia, the motives that prompted to a change of location, could
have been neith'er few, nor slight. Some of them only need I give.

In the first plaice, I wished to be among my own people ; I wished
to aid in training the youth of the two Carolinas — the Old North State
distinguished in our early history, by being the first to receive a colony
of Protestant Englishmen,* the first to proclaim liberty ,f and the first
to pour out blood like water in defence of the inalienable rights of man,

•Bancroft vol. 1. i'age 102. tFoote'e Sketches of N. Carolina.

4 ' INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

and scarcely less celebrated in the present day, for having no broken
banks, no broken credit, and no broken down aristocracy. And what
shall I say of the noble State in which I was born ? I have loved her
with a love stronger than that of women. Yea, that love has only
been strengthened by the abuse she has received from abolitionists,
fools and false-hearted southrons. I pride myself upon nothing so
much as having never permitted to pass, unrebuked, a slighting remark
upon the glorious State that gave me being. How can I sufficiently
extol thee, — land of Rutledge, Laurens, Sumpter, Pinckney, and
Lowndes ! how can I revere thee enough, birth-place of the pure, spot-
less, incorruptible Calhoun ! Thy sons have ever been foremost in the
battle-field, foremost in the councils of the nation, and foremost in de-
votion to the great interests of the South.

But the great motive that mainly decided me to accept your appoint-
ment was the desire to labor in a College, founded in the prayers, and
by the liberality of Presbyterians, — a sect that has done more for the
cause of civil and religious liberty than all the other denominations in
Christendom, — a sect concerning which, a shrewd and discerning King
has said, " Presbytery and Monarchy can no more be reconciled than
God and the Devil."* It is a fact which none can controvert, that the
Church of Christ has to rely, almost entirely, upon denominational Col-
leges to rear and train up laborers in the vineyard of the Lord.

A Literary Institution, without religious culture, is a fountain of
baneful influences. To educate the head and leave the heart untouch-
ed, is to increase the capacity of the scholar for evil, — to make him
tenfold more the child of hell than before. The great sin of the moth-
er of mankind was a thirst for intellectual knowledge, without a cor-
responding desire for holiness.f France, when excelling the whole
world in the arts and sciences of life, was still more preeminent in heart-
less infidelity, audacious wickedness, and crime. The students of the
University of Paris, of the schools of Brienne and Metz have ever been
the leaders in revolution, riot, blood-shed, and murder. Laplace,
D'Alembert, Voltaire, Rousseau and Napoleon were men whose minds
had been cultivated to the highest point of intellectual training, but
whose icy hearts had been warmed by no genial beams from the Sun

*James VI, of Scotland.

tDr. Arnold's Miscellaneous Works.

COLLEGE DISCIPLINE.

of Righteousness. The wanton butcheries, the unparalleled cruelties,
the awful devastations of the French Revolution, demonstrate most
clearly the fearful consequences of an education which rejects the car-
dinal principle of sound scholarship, — " tlie fear of the Lord is the be-
ginning of Wisdom."

Our own country too, has furnished sufficient proof of the necessity
for a religious influence in our Halls of Learning, The University of
Yii-ginia, under infidel auspices, was a terror to the land, a curse to the
cause of education, in fact, a nursery of crime and vice. A few years
ago, our brethren of the Episcopal Church abandoned the visionary
scheme of restraining the students of William and Mary College, by
the code of gentlemanly honor, and elected one of their purest and
most evangelical Bishops to pi'eside over the destinies of that noble in-
stitution.

Siuce then, a College without religious instruction, must necessarily
!ie a public nuisance, is it not plain that the Faculty, who impart that
instruction, ought to entertain the same views and opinions in regard to
the proper interpretation of the Word of God ? A house divided
against itself cannot stand. Let a youth hear one explanation of Bible
truth to-day, and another explanation of the same truth to-mori'ow, he
will doubt the accuracy of both, and in a little time, under a system of
foniiicting exj)ositions, will be prepared to discredit the whole of reve-
lation. (Hir church therefore must look to its Presbyterial Schools and
< 'olleges to furnish workmen to build up the waste places of Zion.
Other evangelical denominations, as well as our own, — the Episcopal,
^lethodist, Baptist, Lutheran, &c., have felt the want of a more eleva-
ted piety among their youth receiving a literaiy and scientific educa-
tion, and are accordingly establishing sectai'ian institutions all over our
land. Godly parents demand for their sons something more than the
diluted Christianity of our State Universities, and the Jesuitism of Cath-
olic Seminaries.

Such being my views of the expediency and importance of denomi-
national Institutions, I could not hesitate in making a choice between
AVashington College, whose Presbyterian character is still in dispute,
and Davidson College, under the immediate control of the church, to
which I belong.

Your Honorable Body has thought proper to give me College Dis-

6 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

cipline, as the theme of my Inaugural Address. I approach with hes-
itation a subject surrounded by so many difficulties, and concerning^
which there are so many opposite opinions. The progressive spirit of
the age, the habit of thought, now prevailing, the rise of Young Amer-
ica, have added new embarrassments to the ever perplexing question,
" how are students to be governed ?" With the Greeks, the most re-
fined and cultivated nation of antiquity, the word education, paideia,
was derived from pais, a boi/ or youth. Education with them, was
therefore the training of boys, and the rules of discipline of the educa-
tors were of course simple, being such as were applicable to boys. But
there are no boys in the 19th century ; — all are merged in young gen-
tlemen. Boots and cigars are used as soon as bibs and pinafores are
fairly thrown aside. In one of our largest cities, a merchant beinj^
about to take his Young x\merica son into partnership with him, asked
him what sign the new firm should have, "John Jones <fe Father, to-be-
sure," was the prompt reply. In a village not a hundred miles distant,
a Father was asked in Court, " Is your son of age ?" " Certainly,
was the answer." " How long since has he been of age t" next que-
ried the lawyer. " Ever since I knew him," replied the dutiful pa-
rent. Just so it is. The boy is a young gentlemen when thumbing:
his horn-book and primer, — a fine gentleman in the Old-field school,—
an exquisite gentleman in the Grammar school, and a superlative,
grand gentleman, by the time he reaches College. Indulged, petted,
and uncontrolled at home, allowed to trample upon all laws, human
and divine, at the preparatory school, he comes to College, but toe
often with an undisciplined mind, and an uncultivated heart, yet with
exalted ideas of personal dignity, and a scowling contempt for lawful
authority, and wholesome restraint. How is he to be controlled with
his lofty notions, his nice punctilio, his delicate sensibilities, his chival-
rous feelings ! Will the old system of admonition and suspension be
suflScient to coerce this high-blooded, mettlesome being ? Admonish
him ? Why he will go off and laugh with his class-mates at the sol-
emn visage and old-fashioned remarks of the Honored Prreses, and jeer
at the rebuking looks of their *' most potent, grave, and reverend signi-
ors," the venerated Faculty. Ah ! I have known that thing to be done.
Suspend him ? The very thing he wants. He will then have time for
a spree, a grand frolic, without the fear of having his orgies spoiled by
a sight of the unwelcome face of one of the Professors. The fact is,

COLLEGE DISCIPLINE. »

that suspension is but a premium to idleness and vice. The vicious
and lazy prefer life out of College to irksome duties in it. They go ofl"
and engage in amusement and dissipation till the end of their proba-
tion, and then return to College to be a dead weight to their classes,
and to be dragged along some-how, until another glorious suspension
is awarded to their merits.

Could the voice of all the Colleges in our land be heard, we doubt
not there would be perfect unanimity in their testimony that a kind,
faithful and affectionate talk with a student in private, may do good ;
but that a public admonition has a hardening effect, and is but the in-
itiatory rite that introduces the subject into the fraternity of the vicious ;
and that same voice would proclaim that suspension is objectionable
for three substantial reasons, — 1st, it allows the student full scope for
the indulgence of idle and mischievous habits. 2d, it disqualifies him
to keep pace with his class. 3d, it makes him a drag to his class.

We can be at no loss to account for the foolish and injurious system
of admonition and suspension, if we keep in view the ecclesiastical
origin of Colleges ; and that the present code of College laws and dis-
cipline is derived from that governing Monastic Institutions.

Chancellor Kent says — * " Corporations or Colleges, for the advance-
ment of learning, were unknown to the ancients, and are the fruits of
modern invention." Again he tells us, that the ecclesiastical schools of
Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople and Berytus, were the first to assume
the character of public Institutions or Colleges.

Dr. Lieber says — " the more ancient establishments of learning, for-
merly ecclesiastical establishments, derive their origin from the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries." Again, " previous to the age of
Charlemagne, Europe had sunk into the greatest barbarism in conse-
quence of the migration of the Northern and Eastern tribes, and the
incessant and devastating wars which attended them. Charlemagne
deserves the praise of having zealously striven to promote the cultiva-
tion of science throughout his vast dominion with the aid of the Eng-
lishman, Alcuin." f The schools of learning established by order of
Charlemagne under the supervision of this monk, were monastic in

* Commentaries xi, 26!).
i Eucyclopedia Americana.

8 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

their character. The first College in Great Britain, that of lona, found-
ed by Columbin, A. D. 563, was a school of Theology.* Hume, speak-
ing of the monasteries in the reign of Alfred the Great, says — " thev
were the only seats of erudition in those days.f The University of
Oxford, founded, or at least repaired, by Alfred, was essentinlly a relig-
ious Institution. The other three great Universities of Bologna, Cam-
bridge and Paris, which threw a dim light over the darkness of the
Middle ages, were the offspring of religious zeal and enterprise. It is
not strange then that a system of government and laws still exists in
the Colleges of the present day, though wholly unsuited to secure good
order and discipline. Admonition by his Superior was a terrible thing
to the Monk : it was the distant muttering of the thunder of St. Peter's.
The most hardened reprobate shrunk back with horror, from being ex-
posed to ecclesiastical censure. College admonition, on the contrary,
excites but anger or derision. Suspension from the privileges of bis
monastery and order, was a dreadful punishment to the cowled priest ;
the ban of the church was upon him. lie became a shunned and de-
graded man, in constant dread of excomm\mication and the horrors of
purgatory. But College suspension excites no such fear and alarms ;
it is even sometimes sought as an object of desire.

Their ecclesiastical origin will explain many anomalies and inconsist-
<mcies in our customs and laws. An eminent lawyer, speaking of the
immunities of corporations fiom private responsibility, says, " The only
solution of this anomaly we are able to oflFer, is, that in the country
whence we hav^e immediately drawn most of our legal principles, pri-
vate corporations, for many centuries were exclusively ecclesiastical
bodies, composed of individuals who could possess neither property, nor
legal existence apart from the corporation to which they belonged. —
Maxims of the common law which were justly applicable to monks pro*
fessing poverty and destitute even of civil existence separate from their
monastic character, have been strangely adopted by courts, in modern
times, for the total immunity of speculators, who became members of
banking corporations, free from responsibility, in person or property, for
frauds of the most flagrant character."|

*Pictorial History of England, vol. i, page 212. Brooke's Gazeteer. The
pystem of ecclesiastical polity in this seminary is said to have been Presbyterian.
t History of England, vol. i, page 74.
t Southern Quarterly Review. Vol. i. page 109.

COLLEGE DISCIPLINE. U

The testimony of this distinguished legal gentleman corroborates the
two positions that we have taken. 1st, that private corporations, such
as Colleges, were originally ecclesiastical bodies ; — 2nd, that the legal
maxims and principles which were held by those bodies many centuries
ago, have been transmitted to their successors of the present day. We
think it high time to disenthrall ourselves from the shackles of Cathol-
icism. We think it high time to put an end to the boast of the Papist
that Rome governs the world by its literature, its maxims and its reli-
gion when it has ceased to control by its mail-clad warriors, its cohorts
and its legions. Let it never be said that Presbyterian youth, in a
Presbyterian College, are governed by a code of laws adapted to, and
intended for, the cassock-wearing and shaven-pated minions of Popery.
Let us away with this monastic foolery. The followers of Calvin and
Knox have nothing in common with the stupid devotees of the scarlet
woman of the Tiber. How then is a Protestant College to be govern-
ed ? What must be its code of laws ?

Here we would premise at the very outset of this inquiry, that the
wisest and most wholesome laws will be destitute of all efficiency, and
absolutely void and nugatory, unless they receive the support of the
governed party. The efficacy of all law must depend upon the moral
sentiment of the subject. The law has supreme control and sovereign
power with a virtuous people, but is a dead letter with the vicious and
depraved. The most judicious system of rules and regulations will be
scoffed at, contemned and trampled upon in a College, where the moral
tone is low. Well did the great Statesman of Massachusetts say, " we
must look for security above the law, and beyond the law, in the prev-
alence of enliglitened and well-principled moral sentiment." This lof-
ty sentiment must be instilled and inculcated by the praying fathers,
but especially by the praying mothers, of the youth in process of train-
ing for a Collegiate course. The young man, who has been tauglit
from his cradle, to reverence parental authority, and to respect Bible
truth, and has learned that subordination to government does not in-
volve meanness and cowardice, will be distinguished by a manly, an
upright and an honorable deportment throughout the whole of his Col-
lege career. Youthful impetuosity may possibly betray him to follow
a multitude to do evil, but his sober second thought xoill be right ; the
monitions of conscience will be heard above the clamor of passion and
prejudice. Any College officer of moderate observation can find out

to IKAUGUBAL ADDRESS.

in three months, what students ai-e blessed with pious aad judicious
mothers. Loose, careless family government, is the great obstacle in the
irny of efficient College discipline. Another formidable difficulty in
the way of an elevated standard of scholarship and a high tone of
moral sentiment in our seminaries of learning, is the deplorable want
of right training of the mind and heart in our primary schools. The
candidates for the Freshman class, and, in many instances, for the high-
er classes, have not been taught to think, and to exercise their reason-
ing faculties. They have learned words just as parrots karn them,,
without connecting ideas with those words. The first year in College
lias to be spent mainly in the effort to divest the mind of a mischiev-
ous culture, or want of culture. There are many honorable exceptions
among the teachers in our Academies. North Carolina has lost a pub-
lic benefactor in the lamented Kirkpatrick. Still it is an undeniable
truth that the teaching in our preparatory schools is deplorably defec-
tive. However, under the most unfavorable circumstances, much may
1»e done in College towards elevating the mind and purifying the heart
even of the student, who has not enjoyed the inestimable blessing of
godly parents and competent instructors. God will honor an Institu-
tion, whose Head honors IIisi. The character of a College depends
mainly upon the character of its President. Let him be false, sly,.
hypocritical, intriguing, irresolute in the exercise of discipline, cringing
to popular favor ; every exalted sentiment of virtue and honor will be
crushed to death under his pernicious administration. The students
will be disorderly, discontented, and ripe at all times for riot and rebell-
ion. Let him, on the contrary, be honest, j)ure, guileless ; a man whose
lieart is so full of the fear of God, that it has no room for " the fear of mau
that bringeth a snare," his College will be distinguished for lofty piety,
and gentlemanly propriety. Let such a President have the faithful co-
operation of a firm, discreet, and competent Faculty, he will be able to
make the Institution over which he presides, a blessing to the world,
and an ornament to the Church of Christ. A wise, God-fearing Pre^
sident, a pious and efReient corps of P}X)fessors constitute then, in our
opinion, the first and most important element of College discipline.
An Institution presided over by such men, must be preeminent for its
manly piety and thorough scholarship. It is humiliating to reflect that
there are but i«w sueh Institutions in the world. An eminent English-
man, speaking of the Colleges of his country, says that they are but

COHERE DISCIPtmS. 11

"■the nurseries of idleness and vice."* This is lamentably trwe in our
own beloved land. An oceasioaal scholar is sent out from their walls,
whilst thousands of conceited ignoramuses are spawned htth with not
Algebra enough to equate their minds with zero ; Latia enough to.
read their parchments ; Greek enough to know the diftereace between
letupJia and fa sol la ; Astronoray and sense enough to know the gen-
der of the Man in the Moon. The testimony of Presidenfe Edwards is.
very decided as to the low standard of moral sentiment and; scholarship
in our Literary Institutions, lie says, " it seems to me a reproach to-
the land, that ever it should be so with our Colleges, that instead of
being places of the greatest advantage for true piety ; one can't send a
child thither, witlwut great dang£f of his- being infected as. to his mor-
als. This is perfectly intolerable, and any thing should be done, rather
than it should bej'f

Here then are two high authorities as to the condition of English
and American Colleges. We learn that it is no better oB the Conti-
nent of Europe, and that in many Colleges it is only necessary to pay
the regular tuition fees, and stay out the two, three, or four years of the
required course. An Englishman proposed to a (Jerman University to.
pay the fees beforehand and save his time. After some little demur»
his proposition was agreed to, and his diploma, with its mystic charac-
ters and ponderous seal, was duly delivered. Flushed with success, the
learned graduate next proposed to buy a degree for bis horse. The
answer of the conscientious Faculty, was soniewht^t withering : — " AVe
sometimes give diplomas to donkeys, but never to hci-ses." Just so it
is : — ninnies take degrees, and blockheads bear away the title of Bach-
elor of Arts ; though the only art thev acquired in CulJege was the art
of yelling, ringing of hells, and blowing horns in nocturnal rows. This,
lamentable state of things in our Litenn-y Institutions is due, we think,
mainly to the want of the general Uiflusion of a spirit of emulation
among the students. The first three or four in each class are incited la
put forth all their powers in the contest for the College honors ; and it
may be that the last two or three in their respective classes use some
exertion to escape deficiency and the odium of a sjyeeiali gratia. But
the great mass of the students have no stimulus at all, and, unless for-

»B..wdIer.

+ Edwards ou Revivals. Page 530.

12 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

tified hy high religious principle, must speedily acquire idle habits, and
learn to drone away their time between lounging, cards, cigars, and
whiskey punch. The industrious youth must be discouraged in a Col-
lege where the idle and vicious stand upon precisely the same platform.
The student, who has trimmed his midnight lamp in the laudable de-
sire to master the difficulties of mathematics, and the intricacies of Lan-
guage, feels that of right he ought to be above the rowdy who has spent
his hours in gambling and drunkenness. But without the grading sys-
tem, all, except the first three in the graduating class, are on the
same undistinguished level. How disheartening this must be to the
studious, the orderly and the well disposed. lias it not the effect
of chilling and repressing all generous zeal to excel ? Does it not level
downwards and place the energetic and aspiring in the same class with
the lazy and worthless ? The Saviour of mankind held out rewards
as an inducement to exertion. His disciples, in like manner, stimula-
ted to enterprise ; and the great Apostle to the Gentiles exhorted to
" provoke one another to good works." Are we wiser than what is
written? Dare we repudiate the principle that the Son of Man has
laid down in the parable of the talents, — the principle of encouraging
effort and rewarding merit ? Just in proportion as there has been
Christianity and sense enough in our Colleges, to take the I^ible as their
guide in this particular, have they made progress in sound scholai-ship.
The grading system has made the Military Academy at West Point,
the first school of science in America. It has elevated Yale College,
Nassau Hall, Miami University, Washington College, Hampden Sidney,
Jefferson College, <fcc., (kc. South Carolina College has reaped rich fruit
from it, though it has been but partially introduced into that most
deservedly popular Institution. We once heard the accomplished Su-
perintendent of the Virginia Military Institute say, that without the
grading system, his southern West Point, the pride and pet of the
State, would not remain in existence a single week. Horace Mann, in
his seventh annual report to the Board of Education of Massachusetts,
speaks of the Prussian and Scottish schools as the best in the world.
In these the teachers are careful to excite to the highest point a spirit
of emulation and generous rivalry among their pupils. Mr. Mann,
after a personal inspection into, and a thorough examination of these
schools, gives this decided testimony : " by the mode above described,
there is no sleepiness, no droning, no inattention,*' in the recitation

COLLEGE DISCIPLINE. 13

rooms. It appears also, from the report, that the French stimulate
their youth in a like manner in a very high degree. " In the room of
the Head of the Royal College, at Versailles, I also saw, says Mr.
Mann, " the portraits of those students of the College who had won
prizes at the University. This display and the facts connected with it,
speak volumes in regard to the French character, and the motive-powers
under which not only the scholars, but the Nation works."

Your Honorable Body thinking, in unison with the wise educators of
Europe and America, that emulation is conducive to sound scholarship,
have introduced the grading system into your College ; and it will never
be abolished so long as there is regard to the teaching of the Book of
books and to the lessons of experience.

But whilst the plan of grading all the students at their recitations
must raise the standard of scholarship, it is not sufficient in itself to
bring about habits of order and attention to business. The studious
are generally well behaved, but not always so. It sometimes happens
that those who stand highest in their respective classes, are disorderly,
and remiss in attention to the regular College exercises. Is it right tt>
leave them wholly without restraint ? Again, there are many delin-
quencies, and many infractions of law that must pa:«s unnoticed without
the demerit system : such as tardiness in attendance upon prayers and
recitations, lounging about public places in study hours, disturbances in
rooms and about the campus in study-hours, disorder in Chapel and
Lecture-rooms, &c., &c. These things are not usually, if ever, reported
on the circulars sent home to the parents of the students. The most
soft-headed advocate of lax disci[)line will not contend that such ofien-
ces ought to be tolerated. But they can only be reached in one way ;
and that is by giving demerit to the deliuipient for every neglect of
duty, and to the perpetrator, for every violation of good order and de-
corum. Let the penalty of dismissal be attached to a certain number
of these demerits, and the vicious will either be restrained or cease to
affect others by their bad examples.

John C. Calhoun is the Father of the demerit system as it now exists
in the Academies and Colleges of our land : and in nothing, were the
wisdom and sagacity of that illustrious man more eminently displayed.
Some who have not had as many ideas in a whole life-time, as passed
through the mind of the great Carolinian in a single hour, may object

14 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

to the system of grading and demerit as oppressive and tyrannical ;
but it has received the seal of approbation from the most respectable
Colleges, from the Academies, from the Common Schools, and even
from Sabbath-schools, throughout the length and breadth of our extend-
ed Commonwealth. What, can it be tyrannical to keep a true account
of the scholarship and behavior of the students in a College ! Do the
proposed systems go beyond this? Can truth be objectionable.^ We
had thought it odious only to the Father of Lies and his devoted fol-
lowers. We had thought that Ijonest men every where loved candor
and plain-dealing. We had thought that all wise parents wished full
and authentic information in regard to the habits of study and deport-
ment of their children. Now, any man above the level of idiocy, must
pM'ceive that this most important information can only be given
through the plan of marking every recitation according to its desert,
and of recording every delinquency and misdeed. In making then a
truthful exhibit of conduct and scholarship, we have only provided to
meet the wishes of judicious parents and guardians. We readily ad-
mit that a College, that faithfully and truthfully reports the moral and
intellectual character of its students, will be kept for a time in the
back-ground in point of numbers. There are many, very many, young
oentlemen, who do not wish honest report of their actions. These will
]irefer to enter the Botany Bay Colleges, where they can hide their
gi)od deeds under a bushel — Colleges which make all the circulars
jtleasant and flattering. Wc have known a youth reported No. 1, in the
Junior class, who could not demonstrate the first proposition in Geom-
etry. The rule is to report all to be head. Every student is No. 1 in
scholarship, No. 1 in deportment, No. 1 in all the christian graces,
and. it may be. No, 1 in good looks and politeness. Ah ! how these
circulars do please the fond mothers : they love so much to think that
their sons are so good and so smart. But the old gentlemen shake
their heads. "John was not a prodigy for piety and learning at home,
how is it that he does so well at College? There must be something
wrong?" And thus these polishing and varnishing Colleges excite the
same sort of suspicion that the faded belle excites, when she appears
in public, after having stopjied up all the crevices and wrinkles in her
face with French paste, and after having daubed over her sallowness
with Vermillion and red ochre. People will look knowing and say that
hav beauty is too gaudy and too unchangeable. Trecisely so with the

COLLEaE DISCIPLINE. 15

oily Colleges ; they create distrust by their very unction and lubrication.
They alarm by the unvarying beauty of their reports. The world will
not believe that all the students in College belong to the congregation
of Latter-day Saints. Let suspicion be once awakened, and the nitmi- ^(vvxAwV
b^fs will be speedily transferred to the honest Institution struggling on
with its handful of students. The wise will prefer a College with but
forty working students, to oue that has three hundred idle young gen-
tlemen, for the same reason that we prefer one true man to fifty vicious
donkeys. " Truth," says Lord Bacon, " is iu order to goodness." Theie
can be no goodness without candor. There cau be uo good, well-regu-
lated College without truthful reports, and these can only be made by
ineaus of the grading and demerit system.

Another essential element in College discipline is the system of re*
sponsibility. This should be so carried out, that some one should be
accountable for every oftence. The occupants of rooms and tenements
should be held responsible for all violations of law in their vicinity,
until the names of the violators were given up. The respective classes
and all collections of students, should be held accountable for any of-
fence committed by one of their bbdy, until the name of the oflfender
became known. This plan would enlist all the well-behaved, and well-
disposed on the side of law and order. They are not required to in-
form on the wrong doers, (which is contrary to the tone of all Colleges,)
but are simply expected to make the wrong doers inform on them-
vselves. Then the rowdy, who has not principle enough to come for-
ward and exonerate his fellow-students, would soon loose caste anions,'
them, and be ejected from the College by the force of public sentiment.
Thus an element of self-government would be thrown into the College.
The great mass of the students would perceive that it is to their inter-
est to restrain the disorderly, when every infraction of the rules and
regulations brings down punishment on their own heads, unless assum-
ed by the guilty. The maintenance of good order then would be
made to depend, not upon a few College otficers, but upon the governed
party ; just as it is in civil society, where the execution of the law rests
with the people. The system, which we propose, is then essentially
republican in its character, and suited to the genius of our people. The
government of Colleges is at present an Oligarchy designed for the
" wretched, dronish monk in his cell with his horse-hair, scull and

16 INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

hour-glass," but utterly unsuitable for Protestants and Republicans. —
Our plan has been in most successful operation in Washington College,
Va., for some three years, and it has contributed much toward making
this venerable Institution the most orderly in the Union. And what
is far better, the system meets the cordial approbation of the students
themselves. It gives the studious and law-abiding a good excuse for
keeping loafers and rioters away from their rooms and tenements. The
latter will then be thrown upon each other for society, aud will congre-
gate together around their filthy whiskey bottle, like ill-omened vul-
tures around a rotten carcass.

But while this mode of government is most acceptable to the stu-
dents, it is no less pleasant to the Faculty. Under it the Professoi's
need not prowl stealthily about the campus like spies around an ene-
my's camp. All they will have to do, when there is a disturbance in
any of the buildings, will be to locate it. The rioters will then most
surely be compelled to inform on themselves. Should the disturbance
be on the campus, or away from the College premises, an inspection of
rooms will ordinarily be sufficient to lead to the defection of at least
some of the guilty. There need be then no watching of the students,
than which, there can be nothing more ruinous and demoralizing.
Treat young men with distrust and susjjicion, and you will but too
often make them unworthy of all confidence. Watch them when be-
having well, and they will soon give you something to watch for. We
are inclined to think that the old Prowler, who prowls about seeking
whom he may devour, is the author of the prowling and spying system
in our Colleges. The Professor who dodges about the campus at night
will acquire a stealthy, night-hawk cast of countenance, and be no
more respected by the students than any other bird of darkness and
i!i-omen. Our proposed mode of government is diametrically opposed
to espionage, and imposes no degrading duty upon the College Facul-
tv. Still there are some who will object to it as involving the punish-
ment of the innocent with the guilty. We reply to this semblance of
nn argument, 1st, that this is not necessarily so ; if the innocent suf-
fer, it will be because they have not the firmness to maintain their
rights against the guilty : 2nd, that even in the best regulated society.
The upright and law-abiding are punished on account of the lawless and
wicked. Good citizens are taxed for sheriffs' fees, constables' fees, &c.;

COLLEGE DISCIPLINE. 17

are taxed lo aid in erecting court-houses, work-bouses, jails and peni-
tentiaries. This is liard, but society cannot exist Avithout it. The tares
grow with the wheat, and tlie wheat loses strength, nutriment, vigor
and beauty, by connection with them. It is the law of God. — We
cannot set it aside.

Again, in every College in America, except Davidson, tlierc is a com-
mon deposit fa"d formed by the contribution of all the students,
which is set aside to repair the damages committed by vicious rioters.
We liave known some four hundred dollars paid out for breakages,
made chiefly by a single worthless rowdy. Now, would it not have
l)een far better for the students to have held this wretch accountable
for his misdeeds, than to have been taxed in this enormous manner ?
Had they a right to squander the hard earnings of their parents in
pampering to the viciousness of this malignant creature ? Had they
but held him responsible for his excesses, his conduct would have never
been so indecent, and outrageous. Since the adoption of the scheme of
responsibility in Washington College, damages to property are seldom
committed, and when committed, are promptly met by the perpetrator.

l^ut we will take higher ground in advocacy of the plan of account-
ability. We contend that there is no principle more fully developed
in the pages of the Bible, than that the All-wise God himself, holds
nations and communities responsible for the actions of their guilty
members, until punishment is meted out to their otiences. We read
that a delinquent Prophet sought to flee in a ship of Tarshish, and thus
escape obeying a divine command. But the waves rose in their fury "
at the blast of the breath of the Almighty, and would have dashed
the frail vessel to pieces, had not the guilty refugee delivered himself
np, and compelled his associates to cast him into the raging sea.

Again, we are told that when Achan had sinned in the accursed
thing, the hitherto victorious armies of Israel were seized with a panic,
and '' turned their backs before their enemies." The Captain of the
chosen people of God fell on his face, murmuring, " 0 Lord, what shall
I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies ?" The
stern reply came : " Up, sanctify the people, and say sanctify yourselves
against to-morrow : for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, there is an
accursed thing in the midst of thee, 0 Israel : thou canst not stand be-
fore thine enemies, until ye take the accursed thing from among you.*'

And not KWtil tbe miserable oflfender had given hitti«elf «p, confessed
his sin, and met bis merited fate, were the warriors x)1f Joshua able to
tight with the kosts of the Amorites. But we need not multiply in-
■stances, vpki'oh must be familiar to every well-taught Sabbath-school
scholar in the land. The sickly sentimenla^^l^ that sympathises with
the criminal, and extenuates his crime, finds no responsive echo in
tj-od's Holy Book. The depraved heart, and the depraved heart alone>
hates justice and palliates guilt. The abolition of capital punishment in
some of our States — the making heroes and demi-gods out of cowardly
assassins and cut-throats, — the combinations of judges, lawyers and
jurors, to acquit the most abandoned culprits, show that the spirit of
infidelity is spreading like a pestilence throughout our country. It is
time to stop this maudlin whining about the blighted hojies and ruined
prospects of thieves and murderers. The victims, we think, deserve full
as much compassion as the villains.

Let the youth in our Colleges be taught that God himself has said
of the good man, the inhabitant of Zion, th«t he is one, " in whose
eyes a vile person is <x)t3temned."* Let them learn to set their faces
against vicious practices, and hold up to condign punishment rowdies
and miscreants.

The Literary Societies of our honored University, have done much
to correct the false sentiment of sickly sympathy for the low and vul-
gar, and to bring about a high tone of gentlemanly honor and proprie-
ty. But, we think, that the system^ of responsibility is better calcula-*
ted to remove wrong notions about screening crime and to banish the
wicked, dangerous, mischievous, infidel compassion for the lawless and
refractory, which is now so prevalent in all parts of the world. Our
educated young men are to exert a powerful influence for weal or for
woe upon the age, in which they live. Under the proposed plan, they
will acquire the habit of sustaining law and order in College, and may
therefore be expected to be found on the side of truth and righteous-
ness in all after life.

The last element of College discipline, we can noNv allude to, is the
restraint of the polished society of a town or city. In such an atmos-*
phere, a young man loses his individuality and self-importance. He is

♦Psalms XV t 4.

COLLEGE RISCIPLINK. 19

Bot SO pufted up with his own grandeur and dignity, and consequently
not so apt to wax fat, like Jeshuren, and to kick at wholesome laws and
the exercise of proper authority. Literary conversation, the softening
influence of beautiful and lovely ladies, the noble examples of the man-
ly, upright and honorable of the sterner sex, will inspire him with lofty
aspirations and abhorrence for every thing mean and vulgar. Novel-,
ties too, will attract his attention, I'ational amusements and diversions
will be afforded him, and consequently he will have something better
than mischief to think about. His mind also, will be so stored with
the pleasant, the instructive and the entertaining, that it will have no
room for that sourness and discontent, which beget disorder, rowdyism
and rebellion.

We have now performed the task imposed upon us, and leave the
subject and discussion with your Honorable Body, confident that what-
ever your decision may be, it will be witn candor, fidelity and impar-
tiality.

Finally, we w'ould confess with humility and self-abasement, that the
wisest code of laws, and the most 'Strenuous exertions on the part of
Trustees and Faculty, must fail to build up a College without the bless-
ing of the Lord. "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in
vain that build it : except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh
but in vain." We would then call upor. godly parents and the friends
of the College, to join us in earnest prayer to the Lord of Sabbaoth,
that it may be made a fountain, whose streauLS sliall gladden ilia City
of our God..