Of all the petty abuses of college life none gives greater evidence of cowardice and ill-breeding than the habit of leaving the class room as soon as the monitor has taken the attendance. Yet no abuse has been or is more prevalent than this. We take the matter up now, because we believe that the initiative in the reform of an evil for which the students alone are to blame, should be taken by the students.

In the first place, then, what is the nature of the offense of one of these busy men who have no time for lectures and recitations? It is nothing less than thieving. The man who thus runs away from the class room, steals time from the class room, steals time from the instructor. Moreover, his exit from the class room is after the manner of the escape of a thief from prison. His motions are hurried, he always waits till the instructor's face is turned away and then he bolts as any thief would do. His face has stamped upon it that expression of conscious guilt, that evasive, sneaking, look, which is perfectly unmistakable. The difference between this thief and the man who steals money is simply that to society the one is a gentleman, the other a confirmed villian. Of course we do not refer to the man who leaves a lecture room for some sufficient reason; this man never sneaks from the room, but goes quietly out, whether the instructor is looking or not.

This is the evil; now what is the remedy? Obvicusly, the instructor may lock the door, or he may have the attendance taken at the end of the hour instead of at the beginning, or he may stop his lecture and ask embarrassing questions. In short, Harvard College may be turned into a reform school for inculcating civility and decency of manner. This, of course, will never be done and if the students persist in this course of dishonor probably the faculty will make no regulation to stop it. Yet what sort of business is this for college men? How much strength of character, how much manliness, does such action show? None. Is it up to the standard of American college life? Certainly not. The students themselves, those who have any appreciation of the dignity of Harvard life should unite to frown such conduct as this out of existence. The man who forgets his responsibility as a gentleman should be shown by a unanimous public voice that though he may be among us here, he is distinctly out of harmony with the student life and that if he wishes recognition for his cleverness and adroitness he will have to seek it where the standard of manliness is much lower than it is at Harvard.