Show STUDENT LIFE 192 We believe that military training as carried on at over a hundred of our colleges is one of the most important aids to our national military strength and that anything which tends to arouse or increase interest in it is of importance to the student who expects to become a good citizen of our republic While the interest in such matters at our college can not he considered lively among students in general the majority of those enrolled are loyally helping to carry out the - plan of the government which prescribes this training at The people who used to prophesy that the agricultural colleges United States would never go to war again were obliged to come hack to earth from their clouds about eight years ago There have been 'righteous wars There are some things in the philosophy of the true patriot that the “peace at any price” man knows not of things that are worth more than many dollars and more than the lives of many men The subject of hazing principally at the U S Xaval Academy has occupied some of the attention of our law-make- rs at Washington during the past few months The law as it stands provides that any cadet found guilty of this not very clearly defined offense shall he dismissed whether the degree of culpability he great or small and shall he deprived of his chances of appointment as an officer the Marine Corps in Army Navy or The writer can not speak with authority about hazing as carried on now hut at West Point about years ago it might have been truly considered an aid to discipline and the training of new cadets rather than a crime to he hv blighting a young man's prospects in life While there were occasional very rare exceptions as there will be to every rule the pranks played then were surely innocent enough in general and taken in good part by the victims A young man who has been selected by competitive examination out of twenty or thirty applicants is likely to have for the cadet-shi- p an exaggerated idea of his importance when he arrives to take possession of his share of the U S Military Academy It is naturally the duty of the older cadets to disabuse him of this or the new arrival’s head might swell out of all due proportion The local papers probably have given glowing accounts of his ability and brilliancy in scholarship and one of the first things he is made to do at West Point is to recite these eulogistic items about himself from in his room the mantel-piec- e The new cadets are called “plebes” during their first year at the academy and are addressed as not for politeness “Mr” sake by any means but in order to keep them at their proper formal distance until they have shown themselves worthy of associating on twenty pun-‘ish- so-and-- so ed |