"College Honor."

Dean Briggs contributes a much needed article on "College Honor" to the October number of the Atlantic Monthly. It is in a way an elaboration of the talk given to Freshmen in English A and received by too many of them with polite indifference. To read the beliefs and hopes expressed in the article regarding the character of the undergraduate of today should be a welcome opportunity to anyone interested in college life. To quote part of the opening paragraph: "To an American college, the word of all words is 'truth'. 'Veritas' is the motto of Harvard; 'Lux et Veritas' the motto of Yale. . . . Now, whether the truth be truth of religion, or of science, or of commerce, or of intercourse among fellowmen, a college to stand for it must believe in it. . . .

"When I speak of a college as believing in the truth, I mean first that its president and faculty must be honest and fearless; but I mean more than this. I mean also that a high standard of honor must be maintained by its undergraduates; for, far beyond the belief of most men, the standing of a college in the community and the effect of a college in the country depend on the personal character of the undergraduates."

The fact is then mentioned that this personality of the undergraduates becomes embodied in a sort of college atmosphere, or "genius loci", affecting the lives of men in successive classes, and forming a standard by which they judge others. "The undergraduate standard of honor for college officers is so sensitively high that no one need despair of the students' ethical intelligence. . . .In some ways all this is healthy. A young fellow who sees a high standard of truth for anybody's conduct may in time see it for his own. All he needs is to discover that the world was not made for him only; and a year or two out of college should teach him that."

The high standard of honor in athletics, with regard to training, is mentioned next, as a contrast to the comparative indifference shown by some to downright dishonesty in preparing college work and in explaining absence from lectures. As to the latter, "able-bodied youths are afflicted with diseases that admit all pleasures and forbid all duties." . . . College ideals are for the most part high, however, and we should not forget "that, when all is said, our undergraduates themselves are constantly purifying and uplifting college honor."