Life — July 31, 1902 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

19 West Tuuety-Finst St., NEw Yous. Published overy Thursday. #500 year in esl vance. Postage to foreign countries in the Postal Union, 8104 a year extra, single current cop Weents, Back numbers, after three months from date of publication, 2 cents. No contribution will be returned unless accompanied by stamped and addressed envelope. The illustrations in Lire. are copyrighted, and are not to be reproduced without special arrangement with the publishers, Prompt notification should be sent by sub- scribers of any change of address. T HE news- papers published early in July a dis- patch from Princeton say out thirty-one boys of Phillips Academy, An- - dover, who took the examinations for admission to Princeton, twenty-two had been caught cribbing and had been rejected on that account. The dispatch added, on the authority of the Princeton examiners, that the papers of the Andover boys were the poorest lot that had come to the examiners this year. The facts appear to have been cor- rectly stated in the dispatch, but the natural inferences are more injurious to the scholarship and spirit of the Andover school than the circum. stances warrant. The Princeton entrance examina- tions are comparatively easy. Any boy can take them who wants to, and in the great schools like Andover they seem to attract the poorer scholars, and boys of the lower classes not yet far enough advanced for such examina- tions. The Princeton examinations appear to have been a popular ‘“ gam- ble’? among the Andover boys. If a lad passed them he was that much abead; if he failed he was usually no loser. This year the candidates who failed are losers because they were caught cheating. LIFE There seems to be no strong senti- ment among the boys at Andover against cribbing in examinations, pro- vided a boy is not caught at it. The Andover masters, however, are strongly opposed to it, and watch the boys in examinations to see that they don’t crib. Andover says that in the entrance examination which Princeton held at Andover the boys were crowded together, and not properly watched. No pains being taken to prevent them from cheating, two-thirds of them did cheat, Andover feels sore, and not without reason, because Princeton, having oxamined a lot of unfit boys, relieved of the restraints that they had been used to, has published to the world their delinquencies, and charged them up to the account of Andover. FPHERE is plenty of justification for Andover’s displeasure. She ought not to be held responsible for any boys except such as she recommends, and if she says it is necessary to watch her boys and see that they don't cheat in examinations, they ought to be watched, She does not seem to suc- ceed as well as she might in making the seeds of voluntary rectitude take root in her boys’ minds, but it must be remembered that the Andover school is not a boarding school, but is run more on the plan of an old-fashioned college. Boys go there older than to most of the boarding schools and stay a shorter time, The strong point of the school, and of other schools of the same sort, is that the instruction is first-rate, the cost of tuition very low, and living expenses can be regulated to snit the means of the student. For lads of character who want to work, whether they are well-to-do or not, the Andover school is a good place. For boys who want to shirk there may be better schools, for the plan of such a school as Andover, which takes prac- tically all applicants and keeps them one, two, or three years, is hardly as well suited for the shaping of character, as that of schools like many that have come up in the last thirty years, where new boys are not admitted to the upper clas: and where all the boys are subject to school influences for from three to six years. Andover can hardly do more than lay down its rules of conduct and send away the boys who don’t respect them. It can hardly protect itself against such a mischief as cribbing except by watchfulness in examinations: Its work is important ; its problem is in some respects par- ticularly difficult, and it should not be rashly condemned. Its experience with Princeton is more likely to do it good than harm, and may do Princeton some good, too. "|. HE old Venetian bell tower came - down with a crash that shook the earth on both sides of the Atlantic. Its collapse has been attended with what the obituarians call “a deep sense of personal loss ’’ both in Europe and America. If money can rebuild it, the money will be forthcoming, and probably a fair share of it could be raised in the United States if there was need of that. But such gloomy stories come by cable about the gradual sinking of the Adriatic shore, and the very bad condition of the underpinning of all of Venice, that the feasibility of reconstructing the Campanile seems to be in doubt. One of the familiar hard- ships of life on Manhattan Island is that cellars have to be dug there with dynamite and steam drills, but after all a rock foundation has some advan- tages over piles. \.ENERAL CHAFFEE has re- viewed the proceedings of the court-martial which justified Major Waller in killing eleven Filipino car- riers, and finds that the Major was let off much too easily, The citizens of Norfolk have presented the Major with a sword, but public opinion inclines decidedly to the view of General Chaffee. The President has reprimanded Gen- eral Jacob Smith for his “kill and burn” order in Samar, and ordered his retirement from active service. It is well done, for General Smith's ver- bal orders could not be justified, and though perhaps they were not meant to be taken seriously, they could not well be overlooked. comicbooks.com A