ISS?.] Convention of Ohio College Officers 311 



written laws and undefined penalties are of the very essence of des- 

 potism, and hence the sanctions for violating this Code of Honor, 

 so called, are often terrible, — so unrelenting and inexorable that 

 few, even of the most talented and virtuous members of our literary 

 institutions, dare to confront and brave them. Often they are the 

 very reverse of the old Roman decree of banishment ; for that onlv 

 deprived a citizen of fire and water, whereas these burn or drown 

 him. They often render it impossible for any supposed oflfender to 

 remain among the students whose vengence he has incurred. 



The requisitions of this code are difi'erent in places, and at differ- 

 ent times. Sometimes they are simply negative, demanding that u 

 student shall take care to be absent when anything culpable is to 

 be committed, or silent when called on as witness for its exposure. 

 Sometimes they go further and demand evasion, misrepresentation, 

 or even falsehood, in order to screen a fellow-student, or a fellow- 

 conspirator, from the consequences of his misconduct. And some- 

 times, any one who exposes, not merely a violator of college regula- 

 tions, but an offender against the laws of morality and religion, in 

 order that he may be checked in his vicious and criminal career, is 

 stigmatized as an " informer;" is pursued with the shafts of ridicule 

 or the hisses of contempt, or even visited with some form of wild 

 and savage vengeance. 



It is impossible not to see that when such a sentiment becomes 

 the "common law" of a literary institution, offenders will be freed 

 from all salutary fear of detection and punishment. Where witness- 

 es will not testify, or will testify falsely, of course the culprit escapes. 

 This security from exposure becomes a premium on transgression. — 

 Lawlessness runs riot when the preventive police of virtuous senti- 

 ment and of allegiance to order is blinded and muzzled. Thus, at 

 the very outset, this Code of Honor inaugurates the reign of dis- 

 honor and shame. Judged, then, by its fruits, what condemnation 

 of such a code can be too severe ? 



But, in the outset, we desire to allow to this feeling, as we usually 

 find it, all that it can possibly claim under any semblance of justice 

 or generosity. When, as doubtless it sometimes happens, one stu- 

 dent reports the omissions or commissions of another to a College 

 Faculty, from motives of private ill-will or malice ; or, when one 

 competitor in the race for college honors, convinced that he will be 

 outstripped by his rival, unless he can fasten upon that rival some 

 weight of suspicion or odium, and therefore seeks to disparage his 



