316 Convention of Ohio College Officers. [July 



But young men are afraid of being ridiculed, if they openly 

 espouse the side of progress, and of good order as one of the essen- 

 tials to progress. But which is the greater evil, the ridicule of the 

 wicked, or the condemnation of the wise ? 



" Ask you why Warton broke througli ev'ty rule ? 

 'Twas all for fear that knaves would call him fool." 



But the student says, Suppose I had been the wrong-doer, and my 

 character and fortunes were in the hands of a fellow-student, I 

 should not like to have him make report, or give evidence against 

 me, and I must do as 1 would be done hy. How short-sighted 

 and one-sided is this view ! Suppose you had been made, or were 

 about to be made, the innocent victim of wrong-doing, would you 

 not then wish to have the past injustice redressed, or the future in- 

 justice averted? Toward whom, then, should your Golden Kule be 

 practiced, — toward the offender, or toward the party offended ? — 

 Where a wrong is done, everybody is injured, — the immediate object 

 of the wrong, directly — everybody else, indirectly ; — for every wrong 

 invades the rights and the sense of safety which every individual 

 community, or body politic, has a right to enjoy. Therefore, doing as 

 we would be done by to the offender, in such a case, is doing as we 

 would not be done by to everybody else. Nay, if we look beyond 

 the present deed, and the present hour, the kindest office we can 

 perform for the offender himself is to expose, and thereby arrest 

 him. With such arrest, there is great chance that he will be saved ; 

 without it, there is little. 



Does any one still insist upon certain supposed evils incident to 

 the practice, should students give information of each other's mis- 

 conduct? We reply, that the practice itself would save nine-tenths 

 of the occasions for informing, and thus the evils alleged to belong 

 to the practice would be almost wholly prevented by it. And how 

 much better is antidote than remedy. 



But again ; look at the parties that constitute a College. A 

 Faculty is selected from the community at large, for their supposed 

 competency for teaching and training youth. Youth are committed 

 to their care, to ])e taught and trained. The two parties are now 

 together, face to face ; the one ready and anxious to impart and to 

 mold ; the other in a receptive and growing condition. A case of 

 offense, a case of moral delinquency, — no matter what, — occurs. It 

 is the very point, the very juncture, where the wisdom, the experi- 

 ence, the parental regard of the one should be brought, with all its 



