Almost every school or college has some sort of "honor system." In some it is a living thing which the students cherish and preserve by strict self-discipline. In many, however, it is an outworn symbol of the "romantic" period of the late nineteenth century, greatly stressed by headmasters in their talks to parents and alumni, and largely a joke among those who are presumed to practice and revere it. Recently a good many institutions have seen fit to abandon the scheme, confessing that modern youth is too matter-of-fact, if not too cynical, to be persuaded by the chivalrous concepts of Alfred Tennyson.
At Yale, where the honor system largely concerns honesty in taking examinations, students have repeatedly petitioned the faculty to restore the old police force of proctors, maintaining that cheating is common and nobody does anything about it. Harvard, thoroughly pragmatic, encourages students to organize and evangelize, but cannily keeps all administrative, legislative and judicial powers safely in the faculty's hands.
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