HO SOB SYSTEM IN AMERICAN COLLEGES 179 



tion had been printed, and an unpopular student was accused of 

 securing a copy from the printer on the night before examination. 

 Conviction would have implied his expulsion by demand of the student 

 body. The ground of complaint was not so much that the use of the 

 questions would be unjust to fellow students as that the action alleged 

 was characteristic of a sneak unfit to associate with gentlemen, and 

 involved the culprit's signature to a false statement that his answers 

 were written without aid. The accusation was based on circumstantial 

 evidence alone and could not be sustained. The trial was necessary 

 in the interest of the defendant, whose accusers were fellow students. 

 So long as there exists such a jealous demand on the part of students 

 that cheating shall not be tolerated in any form, direct or indirect, col- 

 lege authorities are abundantly safe in allowing them self-government. 



But all cases are not so simple as the one just cited, nor is pop- 

 ular sentiment usually so pronounced as to secure the prosecution of 

 offenders. Indeed the honor system is no longer a characteristic of 

 any one section of the country. In the same institution of learning 

 it may be trusted during one year and found wanting during another. 

 College tradition has been perceptibly weakened during forty years. 

 Ideals of education have been revolutionized, and it would be ex- 

 traordinary if ideals of college honor should not be subject to gradual 

 modification. The assumptions that once served as the foundation 

 of the honor system can no longer be accepted without reservation, 

 and the administration of such a system must be modified to suit 

 changed conditions. It may be instructive to inquire briefly into these 

 changes. 



The southern college is no longer under the control of the social 

 class that was in power when the honor system became established as a 

 fact without being known as a system. With the establishment of 

 public education at the south the classical academies have been dying 

 out, one by one, and their places taken by the public high schools 

 of the cities. The spirit of inherited aristocracy has been gradually 

 disappearing, and with it are vanishing the home ideals that were 

 formerly carried to the college. Population has grown, and the dif- 

 fusion of elementary education, though still far from complete, is 

 much better than it was a generation ago. Young men no longer 

 come to college to receive the badge of respectability. They come to 

 secure as directly as possible what they hope to utilize in the approach- 

 ing competition with the world for a living. The testimonial of 

 scholastic success is a baccalaureate or professional degree, the value 

 of which depends upon the reputation of the college. Culture for the 

 sake of culture, training for the avowed purpose of mental gymnastics, 

 the pursuit of science for the love of knowledge and the desire to 

 add to the sum of human ideas, have their advocates still, especially 

 in the universities; but to the great majority of students such motives 



