Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 February 1884 — Schoolboys’ Code. [ARTICLE]

Schoolboys’ Code.

That little world in which schoolboys live has its own code of honor. It is not a high-toned code, and it often ignores the distinction between right and wrong. Yet it is a despotic code, and few schoolboys dare violate it, because its penalty is banishment from the social life of the school. Yet a boy in an Indiana school did have the moral courage to break one of its chief laws, being impelled to the violation by his regard for the purity of the school. The teacher of the school, who tells the story, says: As I was going into my school-house one morning, I noticed two of my boys engaged in a loud dispute over something. One of them held a book in his hand, and the other was trying to get it away from him. Just as they reached the door, the one who was struggling for the book succeeded in getting it, and to my surprise, he rushed into the school-room, opened the stove door, and threw the book into the fire. I was more surprised at what seemed like an act of wanton destruction, because the boy was one of my most trusted and honpred pupils. Such a thing could not pass unnoticed. So as soon as the school had been called to order, I called him to desk and asked: “Was that your book, John?” “No, sir.” “Whose was it?” • “Handy’s.” “Why did you take it away from him ?” * “Because he had no business to have it?” “How’s that? You said it was his.” “Yes, sir. But”—here he hesitated a little, “but it was an indecent book, sir, and I felt as if I had a right to destroy such a book wherever I found it.” “You did right!” I exclaimed, as 1 shook hands,, with him, heartily, and dismissed him to his seat. A false idea of what is commonly called “schoolboy honor,” would have prevented most boys from giving evidence against a schoolmate in a case like this. But lam thankful to say that this one brave example has already done a world of good in my own School, and cleared the ideas of some of my pupils on the vexed question of how far one boy may go in “telling on another.”