for working off the high spirits of youth: games which are rich in poetic
tradition; athletic exercises which mould the young Apollo. To drive
a young fellow upon the thin ice, through which he breaks, and by the
icy submersion becomes at last a cripple, helpless with inflammatory
rheumatism--surely no young man in his senses thinks this to be funny, or
anything but an unspeakable outrage. Or to overwhelm with terror a comrade
of sensitive temperament until his mind reels--imps of Satan might delight
in such a revel, but young Americans!--never, young gentlemen, never!

The hazers in college are the men who have been bred upon dime novels and
the prize-ring--in spirit, at least, if not in fact--to whom the training
and instincts of the gentleman are unknown. That word is one of the most
precious among English words. The man who is justly entitled to it wears
a diamond of the purest lustre. Tennyson, in sweeping the whole range of
tender praise for his dead friend Arthur Hallam, says that he bore without
abuse the grand old name of gentleman. "Without abuse"--that is the wise
qualification. The name may be foully abused. I read in the morning's
paper, young gentlemen, a pitiful story of a woman trying to throw herself
from the bridge. You may recall one like it in Hood's "Bridge of Sighs."
The report was headed: "To hide her shame." "_Her_ shame?" Why,
gentlemen, at that very moment, in bright and bewildering rooms, the arms
of Lothario and Lovelace were encircling your sisters' waists in the
intoxicating waltz. These men go unwhipped of an epithet. They are even
enticed and flattered by the mothers of the girls. But, for all that, they
do not bear without abuse the name of gentleman, and Sidney and Bayard and
Hallam would scorn their profanation and betrayal of the name.

The soul of the gentleman, what is it? Is it anything but kindly and
thoughtful respect for others, helping the helpless, succoring the needy,
befriending the friendless and forlorn, doing justice, requiring fair-play,