Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/152

 would be saner, the experience of the men broader, and that their decisions would be tempered with a finer quality of mercy. Those who preferred to be judged by the younger men were of the opinion that such men, whether students or members of the faculty, would be more lenient and, because they were still concerned with undergraduate problems or were so slightly removed from them, would understand and sympathize more fully with the student in trouble than would the older man. So far as actual justice was concerned they were nearly all convinced that the older men would the more completely attain this end in their decisions, but they thought the guilty would get off with a lighter penalty the younger the judges were. This last conclusion was the more interesting to me in view of the fact that through my personal associations with various men on disciplinary committees over a period of several years, I have found almost invariably that the undergraduate and the younger member of the faculty is likely to be harsher and more severe in his judgments of men found guilty of dishonesty when it is put'up to them to impose a penalty than is the older and more experienced man.

Seventy per cent. of those answering the questions thought it more objectionable to receive help than to give it, though the arguments advanced to justify this point of view were few and frail. Seven per cent. did not answer the question. One man asserted that it was impossible to refuse to give help when asked without being more of a martyr to honorable ideals than most college men are willing to be. "Under our present moral code," another man says, "a