college system, concedes its weakness.  He says (p. 168):  “It is no paradox to say that the first essay of the student’s independence [i.e., the independence of college as contrasted with school] is often an act of prostrate subserviency to the opinion of the college community.  This opinion he has little share in forming:  he does little else than yield himself to the sentiment which he finds already formed....  It [this community] is eminently a law unto itself, making and enforcing such laws as no other community would recognize or understand—­laws which are often strangely incongruous with the usually received commandments of God and man....  No community is swayed more completely by the force of public opinion.  In none does public opinion solidify itself into so compact and homogeneous a force.  Before its power the settled judgments of individual opinion are often abandoned or overborne, the sacred associations of childhood are relaxed, the plainest dictates of truth and honor are misinterpreted or defied.”

It may surprise us to find the author contending, only a few pages farther on, for “the civilizing and culturing influences which spring from college residence and college associations.”  The truth is that the case has two sides to it.  No friend of education could wish to see student opinion or student sentiment banished wholly from student life—­to reduce study to a mere intellectual process without any trace of esprit de corps.  Some such spirit is not only good in itself, but is natural and unavoidable.  Three hundred or four hundred young men cannot associate freely day by day for years in succession, pursuing the same studies under the guidance of the same teachers, without establishing a certain community of sentiment and action, from which the student’s intellectual efforts must derive a great share of their nourishment.  Yet, admitting the principle, we cannot justify or palliate the excess to which it has been carried.  We insist upon the observance of certain limits, which no man, whether old or young, learned or unlearned, is at liberty to transgress.  And when these limits are transgressed we have a right to regard the offenders as all the more culpable because of their advantages.  The circumstance that they come of a “good stock,” as it is called, and are pursuing liberal studies, is only an aggravation of the offence.  We expect youthful extravagances, waste of time, neglect of opportunities, exaggerated self-importance, a supercilious way of looking down upon the outside world—­these are all phases of growth, and are usually short-lived—­but we cannot tolerate any violation of the rights of property, any overawing of individual conscience, any breach of public order, any disregard of public decency.  Such offences we must resent and punish, not only for the sake of those injured, but in the best interests of the offenders themselves.  We cannot afford to let the most promising class of our young men entertain