Ars Recte Vivendi | Page 2

man need not spend more than six hundred
dollars during the four years. This is obviously too low an estimate.
Another thinks that the average rate at Harvard is probably from six
hundred to ten hundred a year. Another computes a fair liberal average
in the smaller New England colleges to be from twenty-four to
twenty-six hundred dollars for the four years, and the last class at
Williams is reported to have ranged from an average of six hundred and
fifty dollars in the first year to seven hundred and twenty-eight dollars
in the Senior. But the trouble lies in Sardanapalus. The mischief that he
does is quite disproportioned to the number of him. In a class of one
hundred the number of rich youth may be very small. But a college
class is an American community in which every member is necessarily
strongly affected by all social influences.
A few "fellows" living in princely extravagance in superbly furnished
rooms, with every device of luxury, entertaining profusely, elected into
all the desirable clubs and societies, conforming to another taste and
another fashion than that of the college, form a class which is separate
and exclusive, and which looks down on those who cannot enter the
charmed circle. This is galling to the pride of the young man who
cannot compete. The sense of the inequality is constantly refreshed. He
may, indeed, attend closely to his studies. He may "scorn delights, and
live laborious days." He may hug his threadbare coat and gloat over his
unrugged floor as the fitting circumstance of "plain living and high
thinking." It is always open to character and intellect to perceive and to
assert their essential superiority. Why should Socrates heed
Sardanapalus? Why indeed? But the average young man at college is
not an ascetic, nor a devotee, nor an absorbed student unmindful of
cold and heat, and disdainful of elegance and ease and the nameless
magic of social accomplishment and grace. He is a youth peculiarly
susceptible to the very influence that Sardanapalus typifies, and the
wise parent will hesitate before sending his son to Sybaris rather than to
Sparta.
When the presence of Sardanapalus at Harvard was criticised as
dangerous and lamentable, the President promptly denied that the youth

abounded at the university, or that his influence was wide-spread. He
was there undoubtedly, and he sometimes misused his riches. But he
had not established a standard, and he had not affected the life of the
university, whose moral character could be favorably compared with
that of any college. But even if the case were worse, it is not evident
that a remedy is at hand. As the President suggested, there are two
kinds of rich youth at college. There are the sons of those who have
been always accustomed to riches, and who are generally neither vulgar
nor extravagant, neither ostentatious nor profuse; and the sons of the
"new rich," who are like men drunk with new wine, and who act
accordingly.
The "new rich" parent will naturally send his son to Harvard, because it
is the oldest of our colleges and of great renown, and because he
supposes that through his college associations his son may pave a path
with gold into "society." Harvard, on her part, opens her doors upon the
same conditions to rich and poor, and gives her instruction equally, and
requires only obedience to her rules of order and discipline. If
Sardanapalus fails in his examination he will be dropped, and that he is
Sardanapalus will not save him. If his revels disturb the college peace,
he will be warned and dismissed. All that can be asked of the college is
that it shall grant no grace to the golden youth in the hope of
endowment from his father, and that it shall keep its own peace.
This last condition includes more than keeping technical order. To
remove for cause in the civil service really means not only to remove
for a penal offence, but for habits and methods that destroy discipline
and efficiency. So to keep the peace in a college means to remove the
necessary causes of disturbance and disorder. If young Sardanapalus,
by his extravagance and riotous profusion and dissipation, constantly
thwarts the essential purpose of the college, demoralizing the students
and obstructing the peaceful course of its instruction, he ought to be
dismissed. The college must judge the conditions under which its work
may be most properly and efficiently accomplished, and to achieve its
purpose it may justly limit the liberty of its students.
The solution of the difficulty lies more in the power of the students
than of the college. If the young men who are the natural social leaders
make simplicity the unwritten law of college social life, young
Sardanapalus will spend his