Part 2

In most of our colleges, the president has some control over the course of education in the schools of the institution; and, consequently, over the professors. Such a plan is, however, impolitic. No control whatever ought to be exerted over the teacher. If qualified--and if not he is not fitted for his situation--he ought to be left to himself, and to follow that system which he conceives best adapted to develop the intellect of his pupils; at the same time he should be held rigidly responsible for his free agency. In the University of Virginia, as well as in other of the higher schools of the country, the professor is required to send in a weekly report of the number of lectures he has delivered; the daily examinations instituted; the length of time occupied in each; and this report of the mode in which his duties have been executed, is laid before the board of visitors at their next meeting. In this manner delinquencies can be detected, and the appropriate corrective be applied.

Occasionally, however, it may happen, that a professor may be indolent, and inaccurate in his reports; and it may be a question, whether it is not advantageous that the presiding officer should have authority to attest how often a professor really does meet his class, with the length of time expended, and the precise course of instruction adopted; and then to report to the trustees, but not to interfere himself in the rectification of abuses.

In the discussion of this subject in the Convention, Mr. Keating has committed a blunder, regarding the University of Virginia.

"He would like to see the president, in truth, the head of the university, occupying a distinguished station in the board of trustees, controlling all the faculties, superintending all the departments. It should be a situation such as an experienced and retiring statesman would be proud to fill. A good example had been set by the new University of Virginia." P. 86.

Now, the rector of that institution is merely a member of the board of visiters, chosen from out the body to preside over them, has no delegated authority, but meets the other visiters once a year, and presides over their deliberations, without, however, having a casting vote. The chairman of the faculty, chosen annually by the board of visiters, from amongst the professors, is the real president, and possesses the powers usually granted to the presidents of colleges. We are surprised, by the bye, to observe from the journal of the Convention, that the University of Virginia was entirely unrepresented there. It has now been established six years, and has been proceeding on a tide of successful experiment. It is the first effort that has been made in this country to cast off the trammels that have fettered practical instruction; to suffer each to take the bent of his own inclination in the selection of his studies, requiring for the attainment of its highest honours, _qualifications_ only, and rejecting _time_ altogether. Although the first attempt in this country on a large scale, the plan has been long adopted in other countries, particularly in Germany, which has been so justly celebrated for the novelty and excellence of its academic instruction; yet in no country can such an experiment be regarded with more interest than in the United States, where, for the reasons already assigned, the youth are compelled to attain, if practicable, the strictly useful, and to strive for their own support at a very early period of their career.

In the debates of the Convention, we find few allusions to that institution, and wherever it is referred to, the most lamentable ignorance of its economy is exhibited, and the greatest errors are committed. In it there is an entire separation of the legislative from the executive power; the board of visiters exercising the former--the board of professors, or faculty, the latter. This has its advantages and inconveniences. In many of our colleges for resident students, the president is, _ex officio_, presiding officer of the board of visiters, so that he forms a part of the two _powers_. Where the president is at the same time a professor this is apt to create heart burnings and jealousies, and gives him a decided, and often unfair preponderance in any dispute with his brother professors, in which the decision of the board of trustees may be requested; whilst, if the executive power have no voice in the deliberations of the superior board; and especially if the visiters reside at a distance from the institution, laws are apt to be enacted, which create great dissatisfaction and confusion, which have not been suggested by experience, and which, consequently, are either wholly inoperative, unfeasible, or impolitic. To obviate these evils the executive might have a delegate at the meetings of the legislative body, who, even if he had no vote, might be expected to take part in those deliberations which regarded the rules and regulations of the university, or the interests of the body to which he belonged; but in the discussion of other topics, his attendance might be dispensed with. In this manner, the legislative body would have the advantage of the voice of experience, and the faculty, by choosing their own delegate, could always be represented, should discussions arise between them and their presiding officer. Nothing is more certain, than that laws which seem easy of execution, and admirably conceived, are often found, in practice, to be wholly unavailable and injudicious. But the mischief does not end here. The respect of the student is any thing but increased towards the board that conceives, or the executive which attempts to fulfil such regulations. By the enactments lying before us, of almost all the well regulated institutions of this country, we find, that the board of professors are requested by the trustees to suggest to them such laws as experience may indicate; this is wise; the faculty are unquestionably the best judges, and no non-resident can possibly have the necessary experience.

Well adapted rules are the best safeguards for the success of any university, where the students reside within the precincts especially. They should be simple, yet not trivial; efficient, yet not unnecessarily rigorous, and should be drawn up, if not perspicuously, at least intelligibly. What shall we say to such cases as the following, which we copy from the published laws of one of the oldest colleges of this Union?

"No person, other than a student or other member of the college, shall be admitted as a boarder at the college table. No liquors shall be furnished or used at table, _except_ beer, cider, toddy, or _spirits and water_!"

"No student shall be permitted to lodge or board, or without permission from the president or a professor, go _into_ a tavern."

And again,--

"If offences be committed in which there are many actors or abettors, the faculty may select _such of the offenders for punishment as may be deemed necessary to maintain the authority of the laws, and to preserve good order in the college_, &c."

It is always found more easy to make laws, than to have them well executed. This is, in fact, usually the great difficulty, and formed, very properly, a subject of deliberation in the Convention. No light was, however, shed upon it, and the most visionary sentiments were elicited, denying the necessity of any discipline whatever in the higher schools. Whenever a number of youths are thrown together within a small compass, other rules become necessary besides those of the land. The _esprit du corps_, the influence of bad example afforded by a few, lead to the commission of offences that demand interposition; accordingly, in every intelligent and sound thinking community, certain transgressions, such as gambling, drinking, disorderly behaviour, habits of expense and dissoluteness, and incorrigible idleness, have been esteemed to merit serious collegiate reprehension.

Of the different kinds of government adopted in universities, we shall mention those only which prevail in the United States. The authority is generally vested in a president and faculty, the former having the power of inflicting minor punishments; the major punishments requiring the sanction of the latter. With the president the power is vested of deciding whether any case is deserving the one or the other. An objection has been urged against this system, that if the president be of a timid, vacillating disposition, he may keep every case from the faculty, and in this there is some truth; he is, however, responsible to the trustees, and hence it can rarely happen that he will exercise ill-judged lenity; this danger too, is greatly abated, provided the faculty be allowed collateral jurisdiction, and can act on cases of which he has not taken cognizance. If he has already acted, it would be obviously improper that any additional jurisdiction should be exercised--in accordance with the common law maxim--that no man can be put in jeopardy twice for the same offence.

If such discretionary power be not granted to the presiding officer, he will have to carry every case before the faculty; and thus his office will be merely nominal, for it would be utterly impracticable to define, with any accuracy, the cases that must fall under his dominion, distinctly from those to be assigned for the animadversion of the faculty.

It has been fancifully presumed, that the students themselves might be induced to form a part of the government--to constitute a court for the trial of minor offences, and to inflict punishment on a delinquent colleague; and, further, that their co-operation might react beneficially in the prevention of transgressions. The scheme has a republican appearance, but experience has sufficiently shown that it is impracticable. In the first printed copy of the enactments of the University of Virginia, (1825) we find the following.

"The major punishments of expulsion from the university, temporary suspension of attendance and presence there, or interdiction of residence or appearance within its precincts, shall be decreed by the professors themselves. Minor cases may be referred to a board of six censors, to be named by the faculty, from among the most discreet of the students, whose duty it shall be, sitting as a board, to inquire into the facts, propose the minor punishment which they think proportioned to the offence, and to make report thereof to the professors for their approbation or their commutation of the penalty, if it be beyond the grade of the offence. These censors shall hold their offices until the end of the session of their appointment, if not sooner revoked by the faculty." But in the next edition of the enactments, (1827) we find that no such law exists; hence we conclude, that the experiment had met with the usual unsuccessful issue. So long, indeed, as the _esprit du corps_ or _Burschenschaft_ prevails amongst students, which inculcates, that it is a stigma of the deepest hue to give testimony against a fellow-student, it is vain for us to expect any co-operation in the discipline of the institution from them. This "loose principle in the ethics of schoolboy combinations," as it has been termed by Mr. Jefferson, has indeed led to numerous and serious evils. It has been a great cause of the combinations formed in resistance of the lawful authorities, of intemperate addresses at the instigation of some unworthy member, and to repeated scenes of commotion and violence, and cannot be too soon laid aside. Sooner or later, it must yield to the improved condition of public feeling; and we cannot but regret to see the slightest and most indirect sanction given to it in the regulations of a university, which has made so many useful innovations in systems of instruction and discipline, that have been perpetuated by the prejudices of ages. The law to which we allude is the following:--"When testimony is required from a student, it shall be voluntary and not on oath, and the obligation to give it, shall be left to his own sense of right."

No youth hesitates to depose in a court of justice touching an offence against the municipal laws of his country, committed by a brother student. The youth and the people at large, are, indeed, distinguished for their ready attention to the calls of justice. Yet it is esteemed the depth of dishonour to testify when called upon by the college authorities, against the grossest violator not only of collegiate but municipal law, as if it could be less honourable to give the same testimony before one tribunal than another; or the morality of the act differed in the two cases.

This erroneous principle, which leads to the separation of so many promising individuals from the universities, threatens their reputation and prosperity, injures the cause and saps the very foundation of education, prevails in some countries, and in some portions of this country more than in others. In some of the most respectable of our own colleges, it is made a duty to give evidence under pain of the highest punishments; and in some of those in which the _esprit du corps_ has prevailed to the greatest extent, it has given occasion to the adoption, by the faculty, of the monstrous alternative of selecting persons on bare suspicion, or at random, and punishing them under the expectation that the real delinquent might exhibit himself. A law of this kind prevails in the college of William and Mary, in Virginia. "In any case of disorderly conduct within the college, in which students are concerned, every student in college at the time, whether he be a resident therein or not, shall be considered as a principal and treated accordingly, unless he can show his innocence." It has also been proposed to get over this difficulty, with regard to testimony, by establishing a law court at the university, of which the law professor, for example, might be judge, and the jury be constituted of the inhabitants of the vicinity. This tribunal to possess the ordinary jurisdiction of courts of law, and of course, empowered to require testimony on oath from the student. Such might be a valuable adjunct to the powers ordinarily possessed by the faculties of our colleges.

The majority of the convention, seem manifestly to have been in favour of what they term _Parental Discipline_; but we are left to conjecture how much this embraces. If it be meant, in the language of Meiners, that "the academical authorities should bear to the students the relation of fathers as well as of judges; that they should not only punish, but entreat, admonish, advise, warn, and reprove"--no one will dispute the propriety of the system. It is, in fact, that which is introduced into our best institutions.

"The governors and instructors," say the laws of Harvard, "earnestly desire that the students may be influenced to good conduct and literary exertion, by higher motives than the fear of punishment; but when such motives fail, the faculty will have recourse to friendly caution and warning, fines, solemn admonition, and official notice of delinquency to parents or guardians; and where the nature and circumstances of the case require it, to suspension, dismission, rustication, or expulsion." But important as may be the reformation of an offender, and interesting as it is to see the wild and the thoughtless restored to the paths of rectitude, it is obvious, that the prime object of discipline is less such reformation than the advantage to others; and if in the collegiate, as in the corporeal economy, an offending member should endanger the safety of the whole fabric, it will have to be removed. A man is not sent to the penitentiary merely because he has stolen a sheep, but in order that sheep may not be stolen. The term parental discipline, in fact, is most undefined; it includes the most discrepant and the most heterogeneous modes of correction. Solitary confinement, sitting in a corner, whipping, are used according to circumstances; but we presume none of these punishments were contemplated by the Convention.

Most of the speakers seem to have been of opinion, that the parental system of intercourse, such as a wise father would maintain with his son, is best adapted for instruction and discipline in our colleges. Such a course would be manifestly impracticable where the number of students is considerable, and is of doubtful policy in all. The professor should, indeed, be kind, courteous, and affable; conciliating and ready to afford every information; but we doubt whether either discipline or instruction is aided by constant and familiar intercourse. There should be a certain distance maintained between pupil and preceptor; but no presumption, no affected dignity on the part of the latter; and under such circumstances every thing will be better effected than where the communication is closer and less unrestrained.

But the great dread entertained by these gentlemen, has been towards the infliction of disgrace; yet no punishment, whatever, can be awarded, without more or less of this. It is a disgrace to an offender to be reprimanded; to be dismissed from the schoolroom for a time; to be sent away from the institution; the good, however, of the rest requires it, and it is pseudo-philanthropy to repine. One point canvassed in the Convention and connected with this subject, requires notice. "Whether a student who has been dismissed from one institution ought to be refused admittance into any other? There is a general understanding amongst the colleges of the United States, that no student thus separated from one, shall be received into another, unless he be so far restored to favour as to be able to obtain from his college what is termed a regular dismissal." (Journal, p. 145.) Unconditional refusal to admit, appears to us to be a rule which can allow of but little justification. Meiners observes, that "those who come from other universities ought to bring certificates that they have not been expelled. If merely dismissed, they may be admitted,--but then they should be narrowly watched." It would, however, be barbarous to exclude even an expelled student, provided he could produce satisfactory evidence of his return to rectitude. It is a good practice to make the matriculation, under such circumstances, difficult; and to require a sufficient period of probation before he is permitted to join the university. The University of Virginia, has no comity in this respect with the other institutions of the Union. It has followed the only rational plan; ordaining--"that no person who has been a student at any other incorporated seminary, shall be received at that university, but on producing a certificate from such seminary, or _other satisfactory evidence_, to the faculty, with respect to his general good conduct." A no less important regulation would be, to exclude those of notoriously idle or dissolute habits, and yet who had never been at any incorporated seminary.

But Mr. Hasler is of opinion, and in this he is joined by Dr. Wolf, and, so far as we can judge, from the published speech of Mr. Woodbridge, by that gentleman also,--that little or no control is necessary over the students who resort to universities. The paper from the pen of that gentleman, in the Journal before us, bears the stamp of visionary enthusiasm; exhibits, we think, clearly a total deficiency of experience, and is

"A fine sample, on the whole, Of rhetoric, which the learn'd call rigmarole."

"Against this liberal discipline," he remarks, "the example of the Virginia university has very erroneously been alleged by way of disapprobation, or as a failure: it affords no proof of that kind. The erroneous system of collegiate life has been preserved in it. The locality is insulated, and the constant sameness of the company, of fellow-students only, produces the bad results of tedious and too close influence between the student, even with the professors. Besides that, the architect of that building, the well informed, philosophical, and amiable Jefferson, died before it was finished; for the construction of such an institution is not finished, with the walls that enclose its lecture rooms, or the dwellings; the organization can only be the result of several years actual activity of the institution, particularly when the plan is novel in the place where it is established. To this is still to be added, that the professors appointed there, were all accustomed to the collegiate life, and therefore not likely of such dispositions as to be proper secundents to the liberal plans of the original founder." P. 265.

Without pointing out the numerous minor errors that pervade this paragraph, we may remark, that Mr. Hasler is manifestly uninformed regarding the condition of the institution to which he alludes. We have every reason for believing, that the discipline of the University of Virginia, is equal to that which prevails in any institution of the Union. The evils of bad discipline, occasioned by the want of sufficient and efficient rules, were speedily experienced there. The objections felt by the board of visiters to over-legislation, led to an opposite error; whilst undue dependence was placed upon the effect that might be produced from the participation of the students themselves in the judicial power. Accordingly, we find, from the supplement to the printed enactments, that it became necessary to tighten the reins of authority during the very first session.

It has often been remarked, that owing to the feeble domestic discipline which ordinarily prevails in the United States, the youth, particularly of the southern parts of the Union, require a different mode of management from those of other countries. There does not appear to be the slightest foundation for this vulgar error. Young men, as well as adults, are much alike over the whole civilized globe; and if it be found that mild measures are ineffectual, recourse must be had to more severe every where: and in all cases, the laws, where needed, must be executed temperately, unhesitatingly, and firmly.

It has been said, that certain offences are esteemed as such in all institutions: of these, perhaps the most fatal are gambling and drinking. Both exert their baneful effects upon the morals, habits, and application of the student; and it is difficult to say, which is the most to be deprecated. The general evils produced upon society by their indulgence, it is as unnecessary as it would be out of place, to depict. It is only as regards their influence on college life and discipline, that they concern us at present.

Habits of gambling should lead to immediate separation of the offender; they are rarely abandoned; whilst they are as pernicious to the student himself, as they are likely to be by evil example to others. Gaming is one of the offences that require a collegiate, in addition to the municipal law. Under this head are included all those, which, from their seductive character, are apt to engross the time of the student, or to lead to parental loss and inconvenience, as cards, dice, billiards, &c.