Religion in Colleges, at Home, and Abroad.
By Joseph Cook
It is said that three bad men give a tone to a regiment. Six bad men will give a tone to almost any college class. With such great classes as our universities of the first rank now have, it is very uncommon not to find that number of bad men in a class. Under the subtle operation of precedents in college life they may give a lasting taint to many a society organized in their university. A class, a college full of undergraduates is a world in itself; but its members are not selected to match each other in moral matters. A young man who goes into college cringing and ducking, and acts like a poltroon in his first few weeks, in presence of these rough-shod moral misleaders, is very likely to be trampled on through his whole four years. A young man who allows himself to be ridden over by the moral roughs of a college for four years is likely to be ridden over by the moral roughs of professional life, and most especially by those of politics and commerce. He is not likely to have courage to stand erect against the huge vices of time. It is, therefore, of the utmost consequence that a young man entering college should be taught, in the first place, manliness. I have great sympathy with a sentiment I once heard uttered by a distinguished college professor that, if a young man is ruined in college, it is, at least, possible that he is not worth saving. Speaking from the point of view of affairs on this side the grave, this is not too stern a censure. If a young man, after such training as now usually precedes a college course, cannot stand up in college against the ordinary moral temptations of the place, against the sneers of a few dissipated classmates, against the persecution that may be organized against him in his earlier years, because of his moral attitude, then I say that such a young man is probably not worth saving for the great purposes of a courageous public life. —Extract from a Lecture by Joseph Cook.