Education: Ethical Mistiness

Few Americans agree on what education is or should be. Throughout the U.S. last week, the West Point scandal (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS) was raising dust storms of argument. The dust might obscure the old, sphinxlike questions, but it blended nicely with the U.S. moral climate—which Americans in general found squally, humid and oppressively misty. And obviously education had something to do with that ethical mistiness. Nearly everybody —from editorial writers to policemen—had something to say on the subject.

The New York World-Telegram and Sun called “for a rebirth of ethics on American campuses.” To the studentweekly at the University of Virginia, the 90 cadets were “black knaves.” To some sympathizers—and to some of themselves—the disgraced cadets were martyrs.

Guards of Honor. Some were inclined to blame the honor system rather than the students. “Its chief weakness,” said Dean Henry G. Doyle of George Washington University, “is that every man pledges himself to be guard not only of his own honor, but of that of his fellows. This immediately runs afoul of the tradition against the tattle-tale.” Added Manhattan Psychiatrist Marion Kenworthy, “We older persons . . . are as responsible as the students when we create psychological temptations.”

But wherever they placed the blame, educators knew that the scandal was not West Point’s alone. The subsidized athlete was still a plague, and no one could be so naive, admitted Dean R.B. Browne of the University of Illinois, as to “believe the appearance of a blue-chip athlete on a college campus would take anyone by surprise.” At William and Mary, two coaches resigned last week after the athletic department was charged with faking high-school grades to get promising athletes in. Even parents have been tainted, said Retiring President Alexander G. Ruthven of the University of Michigan: they have come to believe “that their sons ought to be paid for their competition.”

Something to Shout About. As for cheating, it is also apparently universal. Yale, troubled by the manners, rudeness and “easy moral standards” of some students, felt forced to issue a warning that it was about to “tighten up.” Other colleges and universities already had their own tight controls.

From Harvard on down, most colleges give rigidly proctored examinations. (“It seems inexcusable,” says the University of Chicago’s chief examiner, “to place the burden of honesty upon the students.”) Only one university in ten trusts its students enough to maintain an honor system. Crowed the Stanford Daily: “As long as schools like West Point supposedly have an honor code, Stanford need not take pride in the mere possession of one; but to have one that works—that indeed is something to shout about.”