Page:Discipline and the Derelict (1921).pdf/20

 our own disciplinary committee were discussing the penalty which was about to be recommended for a student who had been somewhat irregular in conduct. "I should be glad to vote for this penalty," one of the members said, "if it did not seem to me inconsistent with what we have previously done in similar cases. The last man we had before us who had been guilty of a similar irregularity received a much more severe penalty."

"Any one who has been on this committee long," a second member answered, "must realize that its chief virtue is that it never pretends to be consistent. It treats men as individuals, and we have never met two individuals alike."

Many college rules are virtually a dead letter because they are difficult or impossible of enforcement, and the existence of such regulations can do nothing less than bring the whole system of college statutes into ridicule and disrepute. If a rule is made, some effort should be made to enforce it; though many people think that laws in themselves carry weight, even if allowed to go unexecuted.

More than this, the very existence of regulations will frequently incite students to insubordination that would not otherwise have been thought of. "I've just discovered," one freshman said to another, "that it's against the rule to smoke in the quadrangle. Now I suppose it will make me sick, but I couldn't let a thing like that go by without having a try at it." I am not arguing against regulations per se; some, of course, are necessary for the proper conduct of any business or institution, but the fewer