Halls of Honor: College Men in the Old South

CHAPTER 1 IT’S ALL ACADEMIC: Faculty, Curriculum, Cheating, and Commencement

capter 1 It’s All Academic faculty, curriculum, ceating, and commencement An assessment of college students: “They attend classes but make no effort to learn anything”; “They frequently learn what they would better ignore”; “On obscure points they depend upon their own judgment . . . so they become masters of error.” Historians have generally agreed with these characterizations when describing college life in the Old South. They have depicted southern college students as mere fops, more concerned with power and position than academic matters . Scholars point to the Draconian rules and regulations, the Puritanical middle-class professors, and the recitation method of learning as key factors in establishing an antagonistic environment in southern institutions of higher learning. According to this view, college students had few academic goals and spent more time at college perfecting their upper-class pretensions in society than in obtaining an education. The problem with these criticisms is that they can be almost universally applied to adolescent scholars of any era. In fact, the quotes at the beginning of this paragraph come from fourteenth-century French critic Alvarus Pelagius.1 The rules of honor, combined with natural adolescent development, ensured that the academic world of southern colleges and universities was not ideal. Society dictated that southern students wear their public masks, and this fact influenced students to behave in ways that disturbed adults. When you throw adolescence into the mix, student behavior was even more questionable to those in authority. On the other side of the argument, however, is the fact that the code of honor was what made these students set and achieve academic goals. It made them express pride in their institutions. It urged them to respond to the demands of 11 faculty, the curriculum, and teaching methods. And finally, honor played an important role in placing value on graduation as a mark of accomplishment. Students generally viewed a college education as an important component in their preparations for careers and their transition into adulthood . Higher education was not necessary to succeed in most antebellum professions, but those who attended college did so because they believed it was important. B. C. Lee, who attended the East Alabama Male College (later Auburn University), expressed the importance of education when he learned that many of his friends from home were going to Mobile, Alabama, to attend medical lectures and become physicians . They could do this without first attending college, which he considered a bad idea. He wrote to his mother: “Nearly all the young men around Autaugaville are making Doctors of themselves; & the majority of them, when they graduate will not be competent to wait on a sick horse. They are not competent to read medicine, as it should be read. I think they should first prepare themselves, acquire an education , & then engage in a profession if they would be successful. Any ‘goose’ or ‘fop,’” he continued, “can study ‘at’ a profession; but it takes a man who is qualified, to succeed. For that reason I am seeking an education , to fit & qualify myself, for future usefulness, & future influence.” He concluded: “Then, if I should take a profession I would certainly be more likely to succeed. ‘Victory is won only by those who are prepared for the conflict.’”2 This idea that a college education was essential for success came from many quarters. One of the strongest sources was from educated family members, and it is of little surprise that they would often appeal to a student’s honor, self-worth, and place in society as arguments in favor of his taking his studies seriously. For instance, John Little had made poor grades at the University of Alabama, but his brother, George Little, a professor of natural philosophy at Oakland College in Mississippi , used his connections to have John dismissed rather than expelled from the university. George then chastised John, writing to him that other family members thought “that it is best to ‘let well enough alone’ & if you make a good clerk & behave yourself, it is all that they desire. . . . I want you, however, to have a good education & will do all in alls of onor 12 my power to assist you (so would they all if you would study).” He continued the pressure by informing John that he had caused his family to shed tears because of his scholastic performance. George wrote that if John had seen those tears, he “would have repented...