SOME LEGAL ASPECTS OF HIGH-SCHOOL FRATERNITIES 229 
and the absence of such eliminates the phrase “‘unless otherwise especi- 
ally provided by law.” The only remaining part of the enactment 
worthy of comment is perhaps that relating to disobedience of the 
rules. 
At common law it was the duty of parents to give their children an 
education suitable to their station in life.t But while the common 
law recognizes this as a duty of great importance, there was no remedy 
provided for the child in case this duty was not discharged by the parent; 
neither was there any punishment inflicted on the parent.?, Under our 
scheme of government wherein education is supported by taxation and 
to a certain extent is compulsory, and enforced by penal provisions, 
the right of the father to have his child and the right of the child to be 
admitted and retained in the public school will perhaps be conceded 
by all. It is a valuable right, and not lightly to be taken away. It is 
within the constitutional guaranties, and, in the face of the statute, 
will be protected by the courts. 
Those pupils are excluded, says the law, who refuse to obey the rules. 
What rules? In contested cases of course judicial decisions supply 
the answer: It is only these rules which under the circumstances of the 
case are reasonable and within the competency of the school authorities 
to make, and the infraction of which, moreover, is brought home to the 
pupil by proof, with notice and opportunity to him to be heard and to 
defend himself. These things—reasonableness of the rule broken, 
proof, notice, hearing—are all fair requirements. They would seem to 
be axiomatic. Yet they have been so often disregarded that courts 
have had many times to interpose, and to remind those in authority that 
some things cannot be too well remembered and that failure to observe 
them or some one of them may be a denial of that fundamental principle 
as old at least as Magna Charia and known as “‘due process of law;” 
which means, says Mr. Webster in the celebrated Dartmouth College 
Case: 
The law of the land—the general law—a law which hears before it condemns, 
which proceeds upon inquiry and renders judgment only after trial. The meaning 
t I Bl. Com., 450. 3 Mills Ann. Stat., §§ 418, 410. 
2 JI Bl. Com., 781. 
