These are days for undergraduates to be welcomed to universities. But according to some media reports, some senior students in a college in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, tried to sell shoddy quilts to freshers instead of giving them a warm welcome, exposing the falling ethics level on campuses, says an article on qianlong.com. Excerpts:

The quilts some seniors tried to sell to the new undergraduates were made of used synthetic fiber instead of cotton, which could be harmful to health. And since the incident occurred on the college campus, the university should take the blame for allowing or being unaware of the farce that took place.

A university is a place of learning, which should thrive on mutual help among students, among teachers, and between teachers and students. But if the first lesson a fresher learns on the campus is one of fraud, one can only imagine what will happen to his/her learning graph.

The incident not only smacks of poisonous behavior in business, but also is an insult to the university spirit and the institute of learning.

Let's hope such incidents are not prevalent in other universities, though the Nanjing case shows that some unhealthy ways and practices prevalent in wider society have influenced the behavior on campus.

Some students have picked up the wrong business tips from society and, to further their interests, are unwittingly trying to turn universities into a market of fraudsters. Many others have made it a habit of cheating to pass exams and still others have made an industry out of the "art of cheating".

Apart from imparting knowledge, a university should also teach the values of honesty and hard work. If a university only imparts knowledge and neglects to emphasize the moral part of knowledge, it cannot produce a better generation of human beings.

(China Daily 09/16/2011 page9)