University of Virginia Library

DISCIPLINE.

In August, 1828, Thomas Arnold entered upon his duties
as head master of Rugby school, and began those reforms in
school management that have shed over his name the lustre of
immortality. Ten years earlier, in August, 1818, Thomas
Jefferson met the Commission, appointed to select the site and
draft the plan of organization of the University of Virginia,
and then laid down the cardinal doctrine upon which Arnold
afterwards based his work—that "after a certain age fear is
not a motive, to which we should have ordinary recourse in academical
government, but that the human character is susceptible
of other inducements to correct conduct more worthy of employ
and of better effect."

Upon this foundation stone the system of discipline of the
University is built. Those futile endeavors to secure a monastic
seclusion, those degrading efforts to practice an effective
espionage over the students, which have been for centuries
the opprobrium of collegiate life, were from the beginning discarded.
The student is treated as a rational human being

whose interests and desires concur in persuading him to reap
the benefits for which he pays. He is encouraged to become
the friend of his preceptors, and receiving their confidence to
give his in return. His word is accepted as absolute truth,
and testimony when given by him is always voluntary and not
upon oath. Regular and orderly attendance upon his lectures,
with satisfactory progress in his class work, is regarded
by the Faculty as the index of upright conduct and sober living
on his part. Any failure in these particulars brings the
student at once under the attention of the authorities. He is
first admonished by his professors. If no reform is made he
is reproved by the Chairman and a report of his deficiencies
made to his friends at home. If he is still obdurate he is required
promptly to withdraw from the University. The penalties
of dismissal and of public expulsion are reserved for
such offences as drunkenness, dissoluteness and dishonorable
conduct.

What are the results of this government by influence?
They are not perfect. But who has devised a system for
the government of four hundred young men which gives
perfect results! Yet the method of the University has rendered
possible the introduction of the honor system in the
examinations, in which each man is allowed to guarantee the
honesty of his work by his personal pledge. It has established
a reverence for truthfulness and personal integrity so
great that no man who is known to have violated either the
one or the other can remain a member of the University. And
finally it has received the compliment of unacknowledged
imitation (at least as to outward form) from those who have
been its most interested and most unsparing critics.