RIOTS AND REMEDIES

Incidental news from college towns is poor evidence on which to base unfavorable criticism, especially when the news in question is framed to appeal to the sense of the ridiculous. But in the case of the now famous Yale Freshman riot of last June it is upon a succession of acts rather than upon a suddenly-announced penalty that opinion must be based. The threat to forbid the Freshman crew to race at New London unless all the offenders confessed and the actual disqualification from all activities of a large part of the Sophomore class are facts to be remembered in considering the latest plan for pledges of good behavior.

Wholesale penalties at prominent colleges form almost as good newspaper copy as talk of entrance limitation on racial grounds, and Yale has suffered in the same way if not in the same degree as Harvard. Moreover, by actions which smack of boarding school discipline, Yale has laid herself open to ridicule, just as Harvard laid herself open to attack by emphasizing a phase of entrance limitation which could not accord with American ideas of education.

The history of the Yale Freshman disturbances and their consequences, which culminated with the radical actions of this fall, is common knowledge. The Yale authorities have acted with a firmness which is admirable but apparently extreme. For they have persevered in their intention of stamping out disturbances between "town and gown" at no matter what cost to undergraduate activities. According to the latest report Sophomores have been asked to sign a pledge promising not to "take part in any noisy or riotous actions or demonstration in the streets of New Haven" and to do all in their power to prevent their "fellow students from offending against the peace or prosperity of this city or its citizens."

Aside from the fact that the pledge system of improving morals has hardly proved an enduring method of reform in college or community, there is one obvious criticism of Yale's latest action. It is characteristic of the policy of mass punishment for the sake of example rather than individual punishment according to the gravity of the case. And it is this policy, followed consistently since the beginning, which has provoked the telling accusation of boarding school methods.