Young Sardanapalus recently remarked that the only trouble with his life
in college was that the societies and clubs, the boating and balling,
and music and acting, and social occupations of many kinds, left him no
time for study. He had the best disposition to treat the faculty fairly,
and to devote a proper attention to various branches of learning, and
he was sincerely sorry that his other college engagements made it
quite impossible. Before coming to college he thought that it might be
practicable to mingle a little Latin and Greek, and possibly a touch of
history and mathematics, with the more pressing duties of college life; but
unless you could put more hours into the day, or more days into the week,
he really did not see how it could be done.
It was the life of Sardanapalus in college which was the text of some sober
speeches at Commencement dinners during the summer, and of many excellent
articles in the newspapers. They all expressed a feeling which has been
growing very rapidly and becoming very strong among old graduates,
that college is now a very different place from the college which they
remembered, and that young men now spend in a college year what young men
in college formerly thought would be a very handsome sum for them to spend
annually when they were established in the world. If any reader should
chance to recall a little book of reminiscences by Dr. Tomes, which was
published a few years ago, he will have a vivid picture of the life of
forty and more years ago at a small New England college; and the similar
records of other colleges at that time show how it was possible for a poor
clergyman starving upon a meagre salary to send son after son to college.
The collegian lived in a plain room, and upon very plain fare; he had no
"extras," and the decorative expense of Sardanapalus was unknown. In the
vacations he taught school or worked upon the farm. He knew that his father
had paid by his own hard work for every dollar that he spent, and the
relaxation of the sense of the duty of economy which always accompanies
great riches had not yet begun. Sixty years ago the number of Americans who
did not feel that they must live by their own labor was so small that it
was not a class. But there is now a class of rich men's sons.
The average rate of living at college differs. One of the newspapers, in
discussing the question, said that in most of the New England colleges a
steady and sturdy young 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 money and heap up luxury in vain. The simplicity and good
sense of wealth will conquer its ostentation and reckless waste.
(_October_, 1886)