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Caption: Book - History of the University (Nevins)
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THE COLLEGE GOVERNMENT 91 finally, as had the heads of other institutions, to surrender it altogether. The chief organizations of the student body were the literary societies and the College Government; and the latter was also one of the pet schemes of the fertileminded Regent. Organized in 1870, upon a plan largely prepared by Dr. Gregory, it followed the general outlines of the Federal Government, having President, Senate, Assembly, Supreme Court, Sheriff, and Prosecuting Officer. Its chief functions were (besides giving the members a pleasant sense of political activity) to drill the students in parliamentary practice, and to enforce order upon the campus. The four "precincts' 1 were policed by men appointed by a Marshal, and misdemeanors were punished by a series of fines, mainly small. No students were allowed to shout or play during study hours, or to whistle, sing, or dance. Residents in the dormitory were not to set their slop-pails in the hall, or sweep their rooms, in daylight. Students caught in possession of liquor, or entering a saloon, billiard hall, or bowling alley, were fined $1 to $5, and those damaging University property might even be fined $25—then a breath-taking sum. Gregory believed implicitly that the Government assisted greatly iij discipline, though it was probably valuable mainly as an amusement. Elsewhere college presidents at about the same time believed that similar plans would revolutionize undergraduate government. The first cases before the Supreme Court were merely those of careless or boisterous students; but in Januar^ll 1872, arose a cause celibre. Some terms previously thgt^ first fraternity, a chapter of Delta Tan Delta, had been secretly started at the University; and its members had gained control of the College Government and resolved
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