Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/251

Rh habituated to attend from choice, but he will profit more by his attendance, and will less frequently be found endeavoring to beguile the weary hours of his imprisonment in the class-room, by petty frivolities out of harmony with the character for manliness which he should at this period of his life be forming.

As to the results of this system in practice, the following remarks, taken from the annual report of the president of the college to the trustees, in 1869, which represent the facts as they apeared then, may be applied without any important modification to the experience of the more recent years: "The effects of the change have proved a very interesting subject of observation. After the lapse of four entire months, it may be said, of a large majority of the students, that no perceptible difference can be discovered at all in the degree of the regularity of their attendance upon scholastic exercises, as it was rendered before and after the adoption of the new regulations. A certain limited number have never been absent at all. A much larger number have been absent only at rare intervals. A number larger still, while absent more frequently, have not at all increased the frequency of their absences in consequence of the change of regulations. Some of these reside at inconvenient distances, or are liable to interruptions of their regularity from other causes beyond their control. . . . From an inspection of the record, it is safe to say that there are more than three-fourths of the entire college body, whose regularity of attendance has been totally unaffected by the introduction of the new regulations. In regard to the remaining fourth, or probably a proportion less than a fourth, it must be admitted that their irregularity of attendance has sensibly increased. This fact shows a degree of parental indifference or of parental indulgence which was hardly looked for; but the evil, so far a it exists, admits of a simple remedy, since the cause is obvious. The inspection of the record makes it quite evident that there is no necessity to make so large an allowance for occasional absences as one-fourth of the entire number. The majority of the students are probably not absent one-tenth of the number. It is practicable, and may be advisable, to reduce this latitude to one-sixth or one-eighth, or even to a less proportion, and the evil will inevitably disappear."

As yet, however, it has not been thought necessary to resort to the expedient here indicated; and, though, in the statutes of the college as they stand, the power is vested in the faculty to apply coercive measures to enforce attendance, this power has never been resorted to, nor has the evil increased. In occasional and very rare instances, a student has been obliged to withdraw from college on account of persistent irregularity or neglect of study; but this by no means more frequently than had been the case under the system of coercion. One quite effectual corrective, applied with us in cases of this kind, is, to require a student deficient in scholarship to study out of college hours under a private tutor, while still continuing his attendance with his classes; and to make his restoration to regular standing as a candidate for a degree dependent on the presentation of a certificate from his tutor, attesting his faithful attention to the studies prescribed, and his satisfactory proficiency in them.

The expedients here described, by which we aim to hold students in college to the proper discharge of their duties, may be said perhaps to partake, after all, of the nature of coercion; but they are not coercive in the sense in which that word is usually employed, when it implies a system of pains and penalties which offend a young man's self-respect, and carry with them, more or less, a sense of disgrace. If they are coercive, they are so precisely as the rules of morality or of gentlemanly propriety are coercive, by operating on the conscience; or as the suggestions of prudence in the ordinary affairs of life are coercive, by constraining men so to govern their conduct as not to prejudice their substantial interests. This is a kind of coercion under which we should desire all young men, and all men of every age, to be placed. It is in itself an educational influence, and one of the most salutary to which men can be subjected. When all our colleges shall have seen their way to the adoption of a regimen like this, as sooner or later they inevitably will, we may hope to see the complete