It is hard to find any encouragement for the Honor System when examples of its failures continually crop up in the college press. The latest report is from the University of Illinois where a violation of the honor rules by three well known undergraduates did not meet with censure from the student body except in the form of an unsigned letter to the Daily Illini. The Illini printed the letter and in an editorial deplored the attitude of the undergraduates in not reporting the cases immediately to the honor commission.

The fact of the matter is that Illinois finds herself in the peculiar position of the policeman who ought to arrest his brother but who hasn't the heart. The Honor System has existed for one year at that university and it is obvious from the recent occurrence that its position is by no means assured. Here again we find the system existing without the whole-hearted support of the upper classes. The students in the case were popular in university circles and one of them had recently been pledged to an honorary class society. When they were discovered cribbing, no one knew quite what to do.

The answer to the question, Is Cornell ready for a trial of the Honor System? is the answer to the question, Would Cornell know what to do in such a case? It is perfectly clear that the so-called system cannot exist and thrive merely on the threat of expulsion or social ostracism for violation: it can only live when the great mass of undergraduate and particularly upperclass sentiment puts a ban on dishonesty, when Cornell students shall look upon acts of deceit with just as much disfavor as do students of the University of Virginia, for instance. There is no difference in the type of student, at the two universities certainly. Our American democratic spirit grants the First Families of Virginia no higher code of honor than the Last Families of Podunk. We are merely conscious of a different viewpoint.

Cornell must keep her weather eye on the fluctuations of undergraduate sentiment, so that she may bring the Honor System in on a tide so strong that no undercurrents can wreck its course. --Cornell Sun.