Regarding the Honor System

Editor’s note: This story from 1907 contains dated language that is no longer used today. In the interest of keeping a historical record, it appears here as it was originally published.

A recent editorial in the New York Evening Post expresses the doubts of its author regarding the value of the “so-called honor system” in colleges, and in the course of his remarks casts a sweeping reflection on the moral sentiment of Northern young men as compared with those of the South.

His conclusions are so at variance with the actual results at one Northern university ­– Princeton – as to call for some comment. The Post’s grounds for skepticism may be grouped under two heads ­– matters alleged as opinions, and matters alleged as facts. Under the first we note –

1st. “That it is idle to hope to introduce by statute anything like a clear-cut sense of honor facultywards among the student community, habituated to the conventional ethics held by most Northern college men.”

2nd. “That honor is too sensitive a sprite to be invoked on a light or routine occasion.”

3rd. That the honor system in the North is “weak in the lack of an aggressive student sentiment to enforce it.”

4th That an appeal to student honor is less effective in the North than in the South.

The first and second of these opinions will be generally concurred in – the first being in accordance with experience and the second a kind of cheerful Bunsbyism whose “bearing lies in the application thereof.”

It is admitted that any successful attempt of this kind must be founded on student sentiment. Where this does not exist the attempt will be idle. The Princeton system did not come “facultywards among the students,” but “studentwards among the faculty.” The student body asserted that for the then conventional standards in this respect the faculty was more accountable than the students. They argued that as long as the whole body was treated like sneaks a certain proportion would act like sneaks. And they promised that if they were treated like gentlemen the honest sentiment of the majority would be a sufficient police force in this matter. It was the students who protested against the conventional code and the faculty who yielded.

“Habituated to conventional ethics” is, however, a phase that begs the questions. Where this system has been successfully introduced the student body in one college generation becomes “habituated” to the code then in vogue. Within two or three such generations the new code has become traditional, and henceforth the system has the aid instead of the opposition of tradition – always a power in the guidance of college sentiment.

Again, it should be said that if honor is so sensitive a sprite as to feel shy at being “invoked,” experience under the old college code demonstrated that she departs altogether when clubbed. The third and fourth will not be at all conceded by those who base their conclusion on the Princeton results. For fourteen years the system has there been so successful that the matter has passed out of the range of discussion both among faculty and students ­– successful by the very force of that aggressive sentiment which the Post denies or belittles. Some evidences of this will be touched upon later.

The single matter of undisputed fact alleged is that Presidents Eliot and Hyde are skeptical. This also must be admitted, and, being admitted, boils down to a matter of opinion after all. But even so weighty opinions, when overthrown by experience, must be revised. They cannot destroy results already achieved. And it may not be improper to offset the opinions of teachers inexperienced in the Honor System by the conclusions of those who are familiar with the working and results of both systems, the old and the new. Such testimony can be had from the President, Dean and faculty at Princeton, – and the evidence of those who are not graduates of Princeton will be quite as decided and perhaps more enthusiastic than that of those who are.

The whole “argument” of the Post may be thus briefly stated: That in the opinion of certain persons the Honor System – at least in the North – cannot be as successful as its advocates have claimed. No material fact is alleged in support of this opinion. Evidences to the contrary, however, are sufficiently strong to convince any open mind.

First is the inherent testimony of the examination papers. Any examiner knows many signs by which the honesty of papers may be measurably judged – suspicious similarities, strong, papers from weak men, etc.

Two significant results of the Honor System should be stated here: Failures in examination have increased; and failure of prominent athletes has been more frequent. When the interest of the whole student body in athletics is considered, it is evident that the honor sentiment if weak would break down there, if anywhere.

Next is the manner in which every detected offence has been dealt with, and the unanimity with which the students have supported the discipline of their committee. It may be recalled that not long ago radical action was taken in the case of men who had acquired an unfair previous knowledge of an examination paper but whose pledge neither to give nor receive aid “during the examination” remained technically inviolate. This technical defence was raised but overruled, on the ground that the spirit if not the letter had been invaded.

Let it be added that none beside a few of the faculty knows how many offenders have been forced to withdraw for dishonesty in examinations. It is sought to relieve the institution of those who offend, but by no means to further punish or disgrace them. Such offenders are allowed to make their own excuses for leaving, and their names are carefully concealed from all except those who must know officially. Therefore, those who base their arguments upon the lack of publicity given to the action of the student tribunal, merely display unfamiliarity with the subject.

Offences, however, have been remarkably few. This has been considered important contributory evidence of the healthy working of the system. But to the Post the decreasing necessity for punishment argues the presence rather than the absence of offence, – much perhaps as a low death rate would indicate an unhealthy locality. How then may this critic be convinced? Surely not by a great increase in such cases; for that would not indicate, but constitute, failure. To allege a progressive decrease in arrests as an evidence of the increase of crime would make Lincoln’s favorite illustration of mental strabismus seem normal, – “the kind of sham logic that would turn a horse chestnut into a chestnut horse.”

A convincing evidence of success may be reached by mixing with the undergraduates – or better still with the younger graduates who have come through college under the Honor System. Graduates and undergraduates are easy to find who are enthusiastic supporters of the new regime, but the writer has yet to meet the first doubter among them. It is not a preponderance of favorable opinion. It is the unanimous testimony of those who have knowledge born of experience.

The Honor System, in brief, has brought to bear upon a most perplexing problem, the sound sentiment of a majority of the students (always honest in this matter) which, when permitted, simply destroyed the old pernicious code so aptly characterized by the Evening Post.

The intimacy of student contact at Princeton, due to its relative seclusion, and the solidarity of college sentiment there, no doubt made a peculiarly favorable ground for the experiment. Otherwise conditions were similar to those now existing elsewhere. Nor can it be doubted that other institutions, where the student body is reasonably homogeneous, and where the old democracy of college life has not decayed, have the same basis for success if wisely used.

It hardly seems necessary to institute a humiliating comparison between Northern and Southern honor, to explain why some institutions have not accepted the lesson which both Northern and Southern universities have taught. Neither should students feel flattered at the opinion, publicly expressed by their highest dignitaries, that, whatever may be true elsewhere their sense of honor cannot be relied upon. Nor is it made clear why the Evening Post, a time-honored advocate of the use of moral forces, can claim that the power which is to subdue cabinets and ministers and replace arsenals and forts is an inefficient substitute for a proctor’s pencil.

The most sweeping evidence of success at Princeton may be found in the constant extension of student self-government, in which this was the first step, and through which some of the hardest problems of college discipline have been solved. So satisfactory were the results of the Honor System that they unmistakably pointed to the same solution of other difficulties. Student control – which means chiefly upperclass control – has effected a great improvement in manners and customs, of deportment in dormitories and on the campus, has regulated both freshmen and sophomores in their class relations, and the student body now enjoys representation through the senior committee, a sort of student senate, consulted by the faculty in matters involving undergraduate life.

On this point President Wilson said in 1905: “They [the faculty] feel the counsel of these men to be indispensable. They know it will be seriously given and that its chief motive will be love of the University, a care for its best interests, a desire to see its life bettered in every possible way, for which opinion is ripe or can be ripened.”

This was originally published in the January 26, 1907 issue of PAW.