1905-06 Volume 30 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

142 THE SCROLL.time and wits for the work of gaining a proper perspective ofthe school, his studies, his surroundings. The electioneeringattentions to which so many are subjected involve endlessand most harmful excitement, unfitting for due work not onlythe newcomer but those who are appointed to win him.Electioneers, to gain a pledge, often use the now ornever" argument. It is an insult to the one sought, implyingthat he is of little worth. Any student exhibiting scholarshipand character can join at his leisure, as testified by thefact that upper-classmen proving desirable are every yeartaken in by the best fraternities.The desire of securing as members such novices as are stylishor wealthy brings with it the danger of pledging somewho are uncongenial or otherwise undesirable. The introductionin this way of one unsuitable member may, even ifof some advantage to the member, which would usually notbe the case, end in lowering the standard or even in the deteriorationof the entire society. Let the new student wait,look about, and decide at leisure whether if he joins he willbe among his kind or a fish out of water, giving us also timeto take his measure more accurately. Good fraternities cannotbut gain in this way; would-be members cannot but gain.The tendency of fraternity members to associate only withfraternity members, thus forming cliques, is to be deprecated.Close friends are not seldom separated by the entranceof one of them into a fraternity. Cliques beget narrownessof mind and snobbishness. The fraternity man looks downon the "alien" and the "alien" hates the fraternity man;the student body is divided and the college suffers.Notwithstanding inter-fraternity associations the relationsof the fraternities to each other leave much to be desired.Only too often they are marred by bickerings, petty rivalriesand jealousies that are altogether deplorable. Cases arenot unknown in which fraternity members have been subjectedto gross indignities for not bestowing class honors asfraternities wished. Indeed, it may be classed as among theworst dangers arising from the fraternity system, that it tendsto make its devotees exalt fraternity interests over those ofthe university.Let there be more kindliness in the relations of fraternitiesto each other, more generosity, more breadth, and also intheir attitudes to the outside college world and to the collegeitself, and there will be no talk of their abolition, less criticismof their methods and a great increase in the good