Protecting the Freshmen

At Messiah College we take care of our first-year students. We thus find this advice from a Leipzig University statute from the year 1495 to be very useful today as we welcome close to 700 newbies to campus:

Statute Forbidding Any One to Annoy or Unduly Injure the Freshmen. Each and every one attached to this university is forbidden to offend with insult, torment, harass, drench with water or urine, throw on or defile with dust or any filth, mock by whistling, cry at them with a terrifying voice, or dare to molest in any way whatsoever physically or severely, any, who are called freshmen, in the market, streets, courts, colleges and living houses, or any place whatsoever, and particularly in the present college, when they have entered in order to matriculate or are leaving after matriculation.

via Ask the Past 

Messiah College first-year students are introduced to the Yellow Breeches Creek

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