that they were characterized by an ideal sense of honor.

But in this as in other things a change took place in the course of
time. As the self-respect of the Virginian became with him a stronger
instinct, his sense of honor was more pronounced, and he gradually
came to feel that deceit and falsehood were beneath him. Used to the
respect and admiration of all with whom he came in contact, he could
not descend to actions that would lower him in their estimation.
Certain it is that a high sense of honor became eventually one of the
most pronounced characteristics of the Virginians.

Nothing can demonstrate this more clearly than the "honor system" that
came into vogue in William and Mary College. The Old Oxford system of
espionage which was at first used, gradually fell into disuse. The
proud young Virginians deemed it an insult for prying professors to
watch over their every action, and the faculty eventually learned that
they could trust implicitly in the students' honor. In the Rules of
the College, published in 1819, there is an open recognition of the
honor system. The wording is as follows, "Any student may be required
to declare his guilt or innocence as to any particular offence of
which he may be suspected.... And should the perpetrator of any
mischief, in order to avoid detection, deny his guilt, then may the
Society require any student to give evidence on his honor touching
this foul enormity that the college may not be polluted by the
presence of those that have showed themselves equally regardless of
the laws of honour, the principles of morality and the precepts of
religion."[103]

How potent an influence for good was this sense of honor among the
students of the college is shown even more strikingly by an address of
Prof. Nathaniel Beverley Tucker to his law class in 1834. "If," he
says, "There be anything by which the University of William and Mary
has been advantageously distinguished, it is the liberal and
magnanimous character of its discipline. It has been the study of its
professors to cultivate at the same time the intellect, the
principles, and the deportment of the student, labouring with equal
diligence to infuse the spirit of the scholar and the spirit of the
gentleman. As such we receive and treat him and resolutely refuse to
know him in any other character. He is not harrassed with petty
regulations; he is not insulted and annoyed by impertinent
surveillance. Spies and informers have no cou