COLLEGE DISCIPLINE.

BY DAVID STARR JORDAN, PRESIDENT OF LELAND STANFORD, JR., UNIVERSITY.

IT is reported that Bismarck said something like this: "Onethird of the students in the German universities destroy themselves by dissipation, one-third wear themselves out by overwork, and the rest govern Europe."

It

Without insisting on the numerical equality of these three classes, we recognize that something of this sort is true of the college students of America. One part go "to the dogs," one part to the grave, and the rest are the strength of the Republic. is the art of college discipline to merge the first two classes into the third; to eliminate or reform the idle or dissipated, to transform weakness into strength, and to promote that culture which is power. The men the college should send out are those who have learned the secret of effectiveness. It is the safeguard of republics that in the long run the man outweighs the majority. Enlightened common sense must rule, whatever may be the form of government. It is the function of the university to enlarge the fund of common sense. To this end, primarily, all its powers should be directed.

The American university is changing year by year in its attitude towards matters of discipline. The tendency is to throw on the student, more and more, the responsibility for his work and his conduct. The growth of the elective system in studies carries with it freedom in personal development. The college student is becoming more and more of a man, and that he is treated more as a man is both cause and effect.

In the German system of education we see the opposite extremes in matters of discipline. In the gymnasium the student is under the strictest rule both as to his studies and as to his

behavior. The student in the university is under no supervision in either regard. Hence the period of transition is one of especial danger. Whatever has been officially forbidden has an additional temptation. When forbidden fruit is suddenly made free, it takes a steady head to refuse it on the sole ground that it is bad. For this reason, the progressive increase of freedom in the American university indicates a wiser policy. It is less wasteful, and it is a function of the university to save as well as to make

men.

But it can work for virtue best by indirect means. It should give to the student the widest liberty of action, while at the same time it should not be indifferent to the abuse of such liberty. In matters of character, as well as in matters of study, strength must come from self-activity. To be good is a matter of individual effort. To be wise, which is much the same thing, is a condition which must be attained in the same way.

The best way to cure a student of petty vices and childish trickery is to make a man of him. Give him something real to do and he will not fritter his nervous strength away in conviviality or in degrading associations. But to forbid excesses and abuses, putting nothing in their places, cannot be very effective. Not long ago I had occasion to say: "If your college assume to stand in loco parentis, with rod in hand and spy-glasses on its nose, it will not do much in the way of moral training. The fear of punishment will not make young men moral or religious —least of all a punishment so easily evaded as the discipline of a college. If your college claims to be a reform school, your professors detective officers, and your president a chief of police, the student will give them plenty to do. A college cannot take the place of a parent. To claim that it does is mere pretense. You may win by inspiration, not by fear. Free should the scholar be; free and brave.' The petty restraints that may aid in the control of college sneaks and college snobs are an insult to college men and college women. It is for the training of men and women that colleges exist.'

If, therefore, the college ceases to exercise its authority to lead young men away from paths of evil, it is not because it does not care whither they stray. It is because it believes that better means to the same end exist. It does not abdicate its authority; it withholds it to be used where it will be most effective.

ence.

It is said sometimes that the American university cannot teach morality. Wisdom can only arise from oue's own experiThe college can do nothing for virtue. Its function is to conduct the classes and let the students take care of themselves. Even the idle and profligate, it is said, serve a useful purpose in the college. The fees they pay make the college stronger and hence better for the wise and the studious. Young men, able but penniless, are supported by the fees the idle pay for coaching, and even if the college does them little good, they get what they pay for.

I do not think this a wise view of the case. The college can do much for wisdom and virtue if it makes them typical of its work. It can strengthen the forces that make for righteousness. Its greatest power is that which comes from personal association. Each college has its own "atmosphere," the resultant of influences of personality. The addition of $15,000 a year to the income of a college is dearly bought by the presence of a hundred loafers. Half the vice in colleges is the vice of corrosion. "A good fellow who is nobody's enemy but his own" cannot go "to the dogs" or "to the devil" without taking others with him. No man can be vicious to himself alone, and the corrosive effects of an unwholesome life are felt throughout the college community. If the good a college does to a man is less than the mischief due to his presence, it is well to get rid of him. This consideration should, I think, be the basis of college discipline. No man should use the university as a place for idle pleasure or for dissipation. If no good comes to him, then he must bring evil to others. Many a man who would have wrecked his life will save it through the influences of earnest men. The development of such influence is the most important feature of the recent growth of the American university. The strength of earnest men is permeating the whole system. The freedom of the elective system has its best feature in the freedom of contact with genuine men. The first of Bismarck's categories is growing smaller in American universities. It is no longer fashionable to be "fast." It is disreputable to grow old before one's time. Let the pleasure - lover go to work or go home.

The second class, the "pale student," who crouches over his books burning the midnight oil, blanches his cheek" and brings pale death upon him in his prime," is in need of similar

treatment. He, too, fortunately, is passing out of fashion. The prizes are no longer given to him. He is no longer the pride of the teacher, and he ought not to be. The ranks of the faculty are no longer recruited from his class. Culture and anæmia are no longer related. "The color of life is red." An education which does not disclose the secret of power is unworthy the name. The growth of college athletics, whatever its problems and whatever its excesses, is a movement toward strength. Whatever makes for personal force is in the long run an agency toward good morals.

As my opinion is asked as to the practical ways of raising the standard of behavior in colleges, I may be allowed to explain the methods in vogue in the institution under my direction. These methods may not be the best, but they are the best that I know, else I should have taken some other.

The whole matter of the control of students in Stanford University is vested in the hands of a committee of five members of the faculty. This committee has power to act without reporting to the faculty as a whole. The rest of the staff of instructors have nothing whatever to do with matters of discipline. The vesting of this power in the hands of a committee rather than in the faculty as a whole has many great advantages. The small committee can act quickly, consistently and silently. A student dropped from the rolls leaves without publicity, and without the disturbance which comes from dealing with delinquents by the clumsy methods of the faculty. The institution has no rules to be broken. Nothing allowed by the laws of California is forbidden by the faculty. Hence, in general, no punishments are threatened or administered. A student is fit to stay in the university or else he is not. If he make mistakes or commit misdemeanors, he may be forgiven if he have the strength to do better. If his character is bad and nothing can be made of him, the university is no place for him and has no need for his fees.

The general function of the Committee on Discipline is summed up in the following letter of instruction recently issued to the chairman :

"To DR. WILBUR W. THOBURN, Chairman of the Committee on Student Affairs:

"The number of persons seeking the advantages of the University is constantly greater than we can care for. To do the best for those who are

in earnest, the University faculty can waste no time on the idle, dissipated, or undeserving.

"It is a part of the duty of your committee to eliminate unworthy persons from the rolls of the University classes. You have the authority to request the withdrawal of any student whose presence for any reason seems undesirable.

"It is desired that you should exercise this authority not only on those found guilty of specific acts of immorality or of dishonesty, but on any whose personal influence is objectionable. Those who are dissipated, profligate, intemperate, tricky or foul of tongue should be removed, though no specific act of wrong-doing may be proved or charged against them.

"It is desired also that you should look somewhat after the welfare of students who subject themselves to unreasonable privations. An education obtained at the cost of a shattered nervous system is not worth anything, and your committee is given authority to check excesses of zeal for work, as it checks other excesses.

"Signed by the President.

"Dated August 28, 1897." Another committee, that on "Doubtful Cases," considers questions of scholarship only, and in like manner eliminates those too idle, too stupid, or too weak to maintain their standing, and this without reference to the moral character of the person in question. Usually the profligate student is idle, or at least irregular in his work. Therefore, the action of one committee is usually complementary to that of the other. But the number of "doubtful cases" is usually in excess of those regarded as inincurably vicious.

Still other committees look in a general way after the ethics and hygiene of athletics, and of student enterprises in general. The policy in all cases is to act through the students, and not over them; not to meddle with anything which can work itself out aright through student agencies; yet not to be indifferent or powerless when affairs are going wrong.

I am asked to say a word about hazing. This name is applied to a species of ruffianism which owes its continuance from year to year to the power of tradition rather than to any natural desire to do mean or cowardly things. It is difficult to deal with it effectively, for two reasons. The one is that it shades off by slight degrees into the mere practical joke, and the right to play such jokes is dear to the college man. More serious is the fact that hazing is a crime of the night. It is usually performed under conditions of secrecy, and the victim is not often willing to turn state's evidence. With no secret police, and no desire to employ such instruments, the college authorities are usually