p. 16 | College Rowdyism by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jul 15, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 27.

College Rowdyism.

By Editor

THE press dispatches of June 28, reported the serious results of a bar-room row raised by five students of Harvard College, on the night of June 19. Eight students had attended a champagne supper and, "after drinking much wine," these five started home together, and, already drunk, entered a bar-room and soon raised a free fight. The police stopped the fight and arrested three of the hoodlum students, but the proprietor refused to prefer any charges against them "for fear of injuring his business," although one of them had hit him on the head from behind with a loaded cane, cutting a gash in which seventeen stitches had to be taken. About midnight one of the gang was found in his room, wildly insane, and the chances are that he will forever remain so, as the latest report is that neither his death nor his recovery is probable. But we read no hint of any college discipline applied to the rowdy students. And this is Harvard College. This is "the leading institution of learning in America." And the worst of it is the lead is too closely followed by nearly every such institution in the country. The hoodlumism, the rowdyism, of college students is a disgrace to the nation. There are, however, honorable exceptions. There yet remain some colleges so old-fogyish as to inculcate upon the minds of young men the idea that they should have other ambition than to become educated brutes.