On habits and manners

minor morals — (Continued.) Among the innumerable forms of deceitfulness there is one, viz. : the withholding of the truth, of which I want to speak to you as students, and which I want you to consider, as it affects you in your relation to each other, to your teachers, and to your school. I am sure that there are few of you who do not grow to have a real and hearty affection for the school to whose influences you owe so much, and who do not feel that in after life you will look back to your school as to a home, with interest, with gratitude, and, if all goes well, with honest pride. And yet I fear that you do not often remember how much the character and success of your school depend upon individual scholars, how much you can help your teachers, how much you can do for your fellow students, how much, in short, the whole tone of the school will depend upon you. No school can be very powerful for good unless a majority of its students co-operate with the teachers, and make the honor of their school a real thing, so real that it is a live influence among them, and this can only be done by the best and most intelligent scholars uniting to put down and expel the vices which are constantly creeping in among their younger and weaker schoolmates. You will understand better than I can tell you how much there is which is wrong and foolish going on among you, which your teachers, however deeply it may grieve them, can hardly reach without your assistance, and that, therefore, your personal responsibility is very great. When you become a member of a school you become responsible, not only for your individual life in it, but for its honor and good name, and there is nothing which a student should feel more keenly than any disgrace befalling his school, above all, when it is a disgrace which, to a greater or less extent, may be chargeable to his own carelessness or wrong doing. Now while there are many wrays in which you can show your allegiance to your school and your determination to make its record honorable and its name respected, there is one in particular which often involves some troublesome questions and requires much consideration — I mean that courageous telling of truths for the good of the school, which you know will bring upon you from some of your companions the accusation of tale-telling, an accusation which must always be very painful to any right-minded boy or girl, Tale-telling is emphatically mean, but there is a wide difference between glibly complaining of some fellow student's mistake or misdemeanor, and conscientiously and soberly reporting to the school officers anything which you are convinced is, unknown to them, injuring or interfering with the work of the school, or poisoning the moral atmos- phere. This latter you are bound in honor to do even at the cost of great pain to yourself; it is a duty which you owe to the school as an organization of which you are a responsible member, and in doing it you need to be sure only of two things: first, that your report is accurate; second, that it is made, not for the sake of telling tales, but because you know that in no other way can the evil be remedied.