education to secure the oversight and unremitting care of students, without espionage or any 'injudicious interference with the liberty of the young man.' With the fine language about treating students as capable of self-government, and responsible for their own conduct, Dr. McCosh never felt the slightest sympathy, believing that the formation of good habits was more than the half of education, and that the morals of the young, like their intellect and judgment, required constant attention from the instructors."[1]
Now let us listen to what the head of an important department in one of the large institutions in this country thinks on this subject: "One way to deal with these strange, excited, inexperienced, and intensely human things called Freshmen is to let them flounder till they drown or swim; and this way has been advocated by men who have no boys of their own. It is delightfully simple, if we can only shut eye and ear and heart and conscience; and it has a kind of plausibility in the examples of men who through rough usage have achieved strong character. 'The objection,' as the master of a great school said the other day, 'is the waste; and he added, 'it is such an awful thing to waste human life!' This method is a cruel method, ignoring all the sensibilities of that delicate, high-strung instrument which we call the soul. If none but the fittest survived, the cruelty might be defended; but some, who unhappily cannot drown, become cramped swimmers for all their days. Busy and worn as a college teacher usually is, thirsty for the advancement of learning as he is assumed always to be, he cannot let hundreds of young men pass before him,
- ↑ Life of James McCosh, pp. 33 and 35.
