Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 68.djvu/189

 Rh done in polite society. But to make the rule universal, because the honor system is in force in a college, secures the most convenient cloak possible for the perpetration of fraud by the unprincipled student who knows that his denial of guilt will be promptly accepted. If a lie is convenient why not utilize it when no obstacle to self-interest is interposed by conscience? The acceptance of his word should be subject to modification by other kinds of evidence just as it is in every court of justice. No rule can be laid down regarding the discrimination between students who are reliable and those who are unfit to be trusted. The trickster should be distrusted until he is eliminated, but tact and discretion are needed in dealing with him. He is found in every community, and he should not receive the protection implied in treating all students as men of honor.

Let the honor system be maintained and applied to all who prove themselves fit to receive its benefits. College interests will sometimes clash, and college crimes will occasionally be committed, proving that some students are not gentlemen. If changes in the present administration of the honor system become developed they should be chiefly in regard to the rules of legal procedure. Let the college court be maintained and trusted so long as students manifest the disposition to make it really efficient. An honor system conducted in accordance with the rules of legal evidence will not secure perfection; but college ethics a century hence will be at least as good as to-day, and better adapted to changed conditions than if manufactured according to the prescription of the wisest of contemporary prophets.