History of the Honor Code

The Hamilton Honor System was founded in 1908 by Hawley Truax '09, then a member of the senior class. After spending the spring of his Junior in Paris, Truax was returning from Europe when he first conceived of a student-regulated honor system. In a letter written some years later, he wrote of the incident: "On the steamer coming home, I met a student at Princeton and his friend at Brown who had so much to say about the system at each college. I was so full of the subject that, arriving on the hill a day or so before the opening of the college, I spent most of the day and night conceiving, and writing out, an honor system." In the fall of 1908, students at Hamilton had their first opportunity to vote on this new honor system and its guidelines set forth in the Honor Code. Originally, Truax had intended to place the Code before an entire student body vote; however, Alex Osborn '09, a classmate and fraternity brother of Hawley's, suggested otherwise. According to Truax: "He (Alex Osborn) read what I had written and was eager to have the students vote upon it. Alex was cautious and persuaded me to have the student body vote upon it class by class. How wise of him! It was accepted by seniors and sophomores - turned down by juniors and freshman." Four more years would pass before every class had ratified the Honor Code. By the spring of 1912, Hamilton College had fully accepted this new Honor System. Since then the Honor Code has developed into one of the most respected institutions at Hamilton, promoting a rare form of trust between students and faculty as well as binding sense of integrity and responsibility among fellow students. Substantially revised in 1993 in response to present-day needs, the Hamilton Honor Code remains a source of pride for all those associated with the College.

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