Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/21

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the better, and then only those which are absolutely necessary.

The best way to manage the student guilty of misconduct is to look after him so personally and so carefully that he may be brought to account just before he has been guilty of the act which would subject him to discipline. The most skilful disciplinary work which I have ever done has been connected with the things that never happened, because they were not allowed to do so.

Granted that the college has made few rules, and that there is some one who keeps himself thoroughly conversant with what is going on, there will still be misconduct, and necessity on the part of college officers to exercise authority. Youth is still young and curious and irresponsible, and is quite as likely to be guided by impulse as by judgment. As I have said, I believe that disciplinary matters in college will be more satisfactorily handled to all concerned if put in charge of a small committee of the faculty composed of from three to five persons chosen because of their knowledge of student life and conditions, and because of their special fitness to form reasonable and sympathetic judgments on the cases that come before them. The members of such a committee should be young or should have once been young with the memory of that time in mind, and their appointment should so far as possible be a permanent one. They should be broad-minded, and above petty prejudices; they should still be interested in the things outside of books that interest normal healthy young people,—such as athletic sports and