Discipline there is none, except in very rare cases, when the law provides
for the expulsion of offenders; only theological candidates are indirectly
restrained from undue levity by having to get a certificate of good
conduct at the end of their course. There is no chapel to keep, for the
student's religion and morals are entirely his own concern; there are no
'collections,' for if a man does not choose to read he injures no one but
himself by his idleness; and there is no Vice-Chancellor's Court, for in
theory students are on the same footing as other people before the law,
though in practice the police seldom interfere with them more than they
can help. It is not surprising that young men not long from school should
sometimes abuse such exceptional freedom, but their ideas of enjoyment are
rather strange in foreign eyes. One of their favourite amusements seems to
be driving about the town and neighbourhood in open carriages. On special
occasions all the members of a club turn out, wearing little round caps of
their club colours, and accompanied as likely as not by a band, and drive
off in a procession to some neighbouring town, where they dine; in the
night or next morning they return, all uproariously drunk, singing and
shouting, waving flags and flinging empty wine-bottles about the road. I
do not wish to imply that all Dutch students behave in this way, but such
exhibitions are unfortunately not uncommon, and show to what lengths
'freedom' is permitted to go.
There is a limit, however, even to the liberty of students, as appears
from the following anecdote. One of these young men gave a wine-party in
his lodgings, and some one proposed, by way of a lark, to wake up a young
woman who lived in the house opposite, and fetch her out of bed, so a
rocket was produced and fired through the open window. The bombardment had
the desired effect, but it also set the house on fire, and the joker's
father was called on to make good the damage. Then the police took the
matter up, and the culprit got several weeks' imprisonment for arson,
after which he returned to the University and resumed his interrupted
studies. There was no question of rustication, as the court simply
inflicted the penalty laid down in the Code, and there was no other
authority that had power to interfere in the matter at all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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