Northwestern University Dental School - Purple and Gold Yearbook (Evanston, IL)

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house of scholastic toleration, and belongs to one of the two follow- ing classes: CID The underfed and overworked, whose misguided fate gave him professional aspirations, Q21 the overfed and under- worked, whose asthetic fancy found in the professional idea a varie- gated field, in which to call into useless activity its previously unused talents, along the line of ulterior benefit. Hazing is the polite term by which scholastic improprieties of a certain class are designated. These barbarities of hazing cover a range of torture from the compelling of a fellow-student t-o devour two whole cab-bages and sixty-three prunes to actual, playful, pre- meditated, innocent homocide. Hazing, however, which is now be- ing officially investigated by Congress, is -only a mild edition of scholastic pandemonium, as this vice exists to-day in some institu- tio-ns of learning. The two have important differential points. In hazing, pure and simple, the officers of the institution are not aware of the existence of the malady until the deadly microbe has done its fearful Work, and the congressional undertaker has been called to disinfect and kill the remaining germs of the plague. In hazing, the under classmen are cruelly and brutally initiated by the upper class- men. On the other hand, in scholastic pandemonium the hazers are ill-bred students, the hazees-the professors and ofiicers of the insti- tution-those men who subscribe to a legal document, stating that the bearer is qualified to practice medicine or dentistry. The uproarious student very clearly has two deportmental ward- robes-one for school, the other for social, occasions. outside of school. In school he is a pernicious factor. a dangerous student, a disturbing element, an ignorant, arrogant disturber -of the peace. a wolf in sheepls clothing, a Judas, a devotee to the boisterous. inde- cent, immoral, treacherous, unappreciative and villainous. clad in the habiliments of all that is law-defying. Cn social occasions, however, this self-same studen-t is a gentleman, clad in the deportmental toga of a Tarquinius Superbus. In the initial paragraph the cause of scholastic pandemonium was laid in part at the door of the household from which the bad student now under fire comes. In substantiation of this premise, and in partial justification of the student and also of the school which tolerates his presence, I would ask, is not early training. both at home and in the public schools. in a measure responsible for that I 99

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avmrfiifafawimvfmfi+i1a4afam1wfamifw+iMwmwfafa3 Q PANDEMONIUM SCHOLASTICUM 3 Ecasvswwc-vif+vswi+4wrvswiwi+vi+vi+awzfwssvzwwswvwiffvsffws QQQZIQQ .'.':' ' Q tzjigggf ' HE caption is a coinage. It represents the unpun- ished and unpunishable improprieties committed by students in a corporate, not in an individual capacity. The evil of which I shall speak is: QU The vicious ----- fiiifiiiifii product of an abortive attempt on the part of fond parents to enforce student-life on children, who, by preference, would choose the occupation of a cowboy, Qzj a mistake in the management of an institution, in not promptly and peremptorily expelling a rowdy the moment his disqualifying, rowdy elements become manifest. Ro-wdyism is not a crime-nor is inebriety a crime, each, how- ever, may become a nuisance, and as such should be abated, if not by the school, then by the state laws, under which the scho-ol exists. Rowdyism, like drunkenness, should disqualify for pro-fessional use- fulness. Rowdyism thrives and scholastic pandemo-nium holds high car- nival because man is a gregarious animal. In a class of one hundred students-except in tho-se institutions whose financial independence places them above commercialism--there a.re usually two leaders in rowdyism, whose uproario-us deportinent very soon forms a nucleus for improprieties on a larger scale, varying in quality from indecency to criminal, assault, endangering both limb and life. The rowdy instinct of the individual is soon spotted by the class. and its devotees, in spite o-f poor recitations and inferior mentality, are lionized openly by the class, and tacitly by the faculty, and prob- ably this is so because of man's gregariousness, which always is pros- titute to ,a leader, whose authority rests in popularity. The rowdy leader, physiologically, runs to laryngeal nerves, cortical speech cen- ters, and hypoglossa.l nuclei, rather than to frontal lobe qualities. Psychically and sociologically he is an exotic, 'flourishing in the hot- IQQ

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. YY,., . . .,... .... .. , , . , ,. . . ,,.,. .. pernicious trend of character, which almost defeats higher educa- tion in many professional schools? Does not home misdiscipline in some cases lay special stress o-n c-ompany manners? In some public scho-ols are not discipline and instruction elevated for commencement occasions and prostituted for occasions other than these? As long as an institution of learning admits bofys to its portals, whose juvenile environment has been of this unstable and maladvised nature, and as long as an institution is 'po-vverless to control the criminal student as effectively as the police control the extra scholastic criminal, just so long will these boisterous elements continue to mutilate their class- mates, insult visiting guests of the scho-o-l and make monkeys of them selves and the faculty. Looking the facts of correlatio-n of institution and student squarely in the face, I disclaim all partisanship, all pessimism and all intent to speak of any particular institution of learning specihcally. Speakingego-altruistically, scholastic pandemonium is pandemic to greater or lesser degree among schools in general in this country. Young America, in her enthusiasm for the American eagle, needs military discipline in the home and in the public school. In the pro- fessional school students should be placed on their honor as men and women, just as they must be placed in the practice of their pro- fession after graduation. 1 ln conclusion, it is not my task to call attention to the many virtues of the professional school. This would require more time than your readers could devote to its perusal, nor is it necessary so to do, since all are familiar with the polish, culture and urbanity conferred by technical institutions and city environment on the ninety-and-nine who spend three or four years in Chicago. or any other great center of learning. The appalling and incomprehensible feature of the case is this :E VVhy will the ninety-and-nine permit one or two ignorant poltroons to make school life one of rowdyism. social clebasement and m-oral degradation, when a simple assertion of its rights on the part of the class would for all time put on scholastic pandemonium a quietus, which parental authority and college government have thus far been unable to eradicate. O0