234 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 
bership in a Greek-letter fraternity works a disqualification for ad- 
mission to the university, then membership in any other secret society 
would be converted into a like disqualification, and discriminations 
would thereupon ensue against large classes of inhabitants, etc. But 
it is submitted that it makes little practical difference to a board of 
education whether they are denied the power to refuse admission to a 
student to the public schools on the ground that he is a member of a 
secret society, if it be conceded, as this case seems to concede, that they 
have the right to expel or suspend such student for attending its meetings 
or for other active participation therein, if such conduct be against the 
rules. This is a refinement of not much practical utility. It is like 
the old lady and her cat, who were refused admission to a boarding 
house, unless she agreed to face a very perplexing alternative, ““We will 
let you in,” they said, ‘‘but, being in, we will have to kill the cat.” 
The third case, above referred to, was from Illinois—Prait v. 
Wheaton College, a privately endowed institution. Relator’s son joined 
a secret society—The Good Templars—which was against the rules, 
‘and so the teacher turned him out”—suspended him. He applied for a 
mandamus to be reinstated, and was refused, and he appealed. The 
charter of Wheaton College gave to the trustees no more than the laws 
of Colorado give to the school directors of high schools—and that was, 
“power to adopt and enforce such rules as may be deemed expedient for 
the government of the institution,” a “power which,” said the reviewing 
court, “they would have possessed without such express grant, because 
incident to the very object of their incorporation and indispensable to 
the successful management of the college.” The supreme court of 
Illinois in passing upon the appeal pronounced the rule forbidding 
students to join secret societies upon pain of expulsion or suspension a 
reasonable one. It did not doubt the beneficent objects of the Good 
Templars society, but the right to join it might be surrendered, it said; 
and the right was surrendered by the pupil under the rule when he joined 
Wheaton College. The language of this judge is so felicitous that 
a quotation may be pardoned. He is speaking of the “legal rights” of 
individuals, a phrase much employed by persons situated similarly to 
x go Iil., 186. 
