Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/19

 to mete out justice in discipline, I should be willing perhaps to trust these matters to the experience of students. But I know how hard these matters are to decide with fairness, how easy it is to make an error, how difficult, if not impossible, to correct one after it is made, and how much is at stake for the undergraduate concerned.

The greatest handicap in my experience to successful college discipline is the number of rules laid down by the college authorities for the conduct of students. Many college officers feel that when an evil exists or an erroneous custom prevails the only thing necessary is to pass a regulation against the evil or the custom, and the matter is settled. I have found that I can in the long run do far more by suggestion and persuasion than by rule, and do it much more to the satisfaction of the students concerned, for often it is possible to have them feel that they have done it themselves. Generally the more rules an institution has, the more difficulty officers find in maintaining good order, and in keeping the young people within bounds.

It is safe to take for granted that young people of college age know in the main what is right and what is reasonable as to conduct, so that it is not necessary that every sin in the decalogue or that every violation of law under the statute should be named in the college catalog and the penalty for its violation attached. Rules often prevent individual action in specific cases. Every violation of good order should be taken up, looked into, and judged as if it were the only one of its sort. Rules often hamper such judgment. Only a short time ago the members of