Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/15

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it. One university officer felt strongly that notwithstanding the fact that the man had confessed and expressed a desire to make good the false credits, here was a case which demanded punishment, a more complete expiation, and he thought that the student should be expelled. I felt very differently. It seemed to me that a young fellow who had the courage to confess a dereliction of this sort and to offer to make such restitution as was possible was well on the way to good citizenship, and should be met half way. In his case the purpose of discipline had been accomplished.

Each institution employs its own methods in the handling of disciplinary matters. If the college is small, the president often is the autocrat who decides the fate of the untoward. Sometimes it is the faculty as a whole which deliberates long and seriously over the cases of delinquents. In my own undergraduate days when a young fellow had been drunk, had danced in a college building, had carried away the campus fence to add fuel to the bonfire in celebration of Hallowe'en, or had backed the cannon into the sluggish campus creek in order to show his disapproval of military drill—when he had done any of these things and was caught, he was brought before the entire faculty, assembled in serious session, and here he was tried. It was a harrowing experience, and not one always likely to bring justice. When an entire faculty deliberates on disciplinary matters, there is likely to be much talking, some wrangling, and uncertain conclusions. The responsibility is too widely scattered, and the student and good order are likely to suffer.