In the early years of Wheaton College, one could say in the earlydecades, as well, the college relied heavily upon the enrollment oflocal students. Though it broadly drew students from the region, it wasthe Wheaton community that served as the "bread and butter" of itstuition dollars.
In 1860 the transition of leadership from Lucius Matlack to JonathanBlanchard, from the full control of Wesleyan Methodists to theinclusion of Congregationalists, brought new energy and resources. Italso brought a different perspective. For over one hundred years amember of the Wheaton College community could not be a member of asecret oath-bound society. Of any sort. The Illinois Institute and,afterward, Wheaton College were founded on several principles:abolition, temperance and anti-secretism. It was these last two, intension, that brought forth Wheaton College's encounter with theIllinois legal system.
Edwin Hartley Pratt (1849-1930), a local student, was enrolled inthe Academic program at Wheaton. He and several other students joined alocal Good Templar's lodge. Known officially as the Independent Orderof Good Templars, this fraternal organization stood for many of theprinciples that Wheaton, and Jonathan Blanchard, held dear: equalityfor men and women, racial non-discrimination and temperance. It's mottosounded very good and biblical — "Friendship, Hope and Charity."However, it was still a secret society and Jonathan Blanchard wouldhave none of it (having believed that the slave system was the work ofsecret societies).
So, the administration of Wheaton College (i.e. Jonathan Blanchard), tossed out Pratt and his co-secretists.
In response Pratt's father sued Wheaton College under the belief andassumption that his son had done nothing illegal and therefore couldnot be expelled. A legal battle (Pratt v. Wheaton College) ensued thatmade its way to the Illinois Supreme Court. In a precedent-settingdecision the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the right of WheatonCollege, and any other school, to establish rules to govern the livesand discipline of its students, much in the same way that a parentwould. As the ruling stated, "A discretionary power has been given, …[and] we have no more authority to interfere than we have to controlthe domestic discipline of a father in his family." This firmlyestablished the principle of in loco parentis.
In loco parentis is the legal doctrine that outlines a relationshipthat is similar to that of a parent to a child. The concept goes backhundreds of year and was embedded in English common-law that wasborrowed from by American colonists. The Puritans put this idea to useand it found its way into American elementary and high schools,colleges, and universities. The legal system in the nineteenth centurywas unwilling to interfere when students brought grievances,particularly in the area of rules, discipline, and expulsion. However,this would change in the 1960s as all forms of authority werechallenged.
One may wonder what ever happened to Pratt. After leaving Wheaton,he became a noted homeopathic physician and surgeon in Chicago and wasknown for his professional writing and work. He wrote Orificial Surgery And Its Application To The Treatment Of Chronic Diseases (1891 and dedicated to his father) and The composite man as comprehended in fourteen anatomical impersonations(1901 and published in several editions). He served as President of theIllinois Homoeopathic Medical Association and served on several medicalboards and commissions. In 1877 he married Isadore M. Bailey (a Wheatonstudent from 1875-1877) with the Rev. C. P. Mercer of the CentralSwedenborgen Society officiating. Pratt joined the Chicago Society ofthe New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian) in 1881.
Oddly enough, Pratt v. Wheaton College wasn't the only time thatPratt was before the Illinois Supreme Court. In 1903 Pratt was sued fornot gaining consent before conducting a hysterectomy on a mentally-illpatient. Pratt lost the case and was fined $3,000. He fought the rulingseeking redress before the Supreme Court. Yet, again, the court failedto rule in his favor.
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People ex rel. Pratt v. Wheaton College
40 Ill. 186
April 1866
Mr. JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:
E. Hartley Pratt, a student in Wheaton college, joined asecret society known as the Good Templars, in violation of the college rules.For this the faculty "suspended him from the privileges of the institutionuntil he should express a purpose to conform to its rules." His fatherthereupon applied for a mandamus to compel the college to reinstate him as astudent. The mandamus was refused, and the relator has brought the case here.
Wheaton college is an incorporated institution, resting uponprivate endowments, and deriving no aid whatever from the State or fromtaxation. Its charter gives to the trustees and faculty the power "to adopt andenforce such rules as may be deemed expedient for the government of theinstitution," a power which they would have possessed without such expressgrant, because incident to the very object of their incorporation, andindispensable to the successful management of the college. Among the rules theyhave deemed it expedient to adopt, is one forbidding the students to becomemembers of secret societies. We perceive nothing unreasonable in the ruleitself, since all persons familiar with college life know that the tendency ofsecret societies is to withdraw students from the control of the faculty, andimpair to some extent the discipline of the institution. Such may not always betheir effect, but such is their general tendency. But whether the rule bejudicious or not, it violates neither good morals nor the law of the land, andis therefore clearly within the power of the college authorities to make andenforce. A discretionary power has been given them to regulate the disciplineof their college in such manner as they deem proper and so long as their rulesviolate neither divine nor human law we have no more authority to interferethan we have to control the domestic discipline of a father in his family. Itis urged that the Good Templars are a society established for the promotion oftemperance, and incorporated by the legislature, and that any citizen has aright to join it. We do not doubt the beneficent objects of the society, and weadmit that any citizen has a right to join it if the society consents. But thisright is not of so high and solemn a character that it cannot be surrendered,and the son of the relator did voluntarily surrender it when he became astudent of Wheaton college, for he knew, or must be taken to have known, thatby the rules of the institution which he was voluntarily entering, he would beprecluded from joining any secret society. When it is said that a person has alegal right to do certain things, all that the phrase means is, that the lawdoes not forbid these things to be done. It does not mean that the lawguarantees the right to do them at all possible times and under all possiblecircumstances. A person in his capacity as a citizen may have the right to domany things which a student of Wheaton college cannot do without incurring thepenalty of college laws. A person as a citizen has a legal right to marry, orto walk the streets at midnight, or to board at a public hotel, and yet itwould be absurd to say that a college cannot forbid its students to do any ofthese things. So a citizen, as such, can attend church on Sunday or not, as hemay think proper, but it could hardly be contended that a college would nothave the right to make attendance upon religious services a condition ofremaining within its walls. The son of the relator has an undoubted legal rightto join either Wheaton college or the Good Templars, and they have both anundoubted right to expel him if he refuses to abide by such regulations as theyestablish, not inconsistent with law or good morals.
Judgment affirmed. |