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

THE SCROLL. 213tional plant as firmly intrenched in the hearts and the pocketbooks of thetaxpayers as are the University of Wisconsin and the University of Michigantoday.Professor Shepardson's article is reviewed editorially byMr. W. R. Baird, editor of the Beta Theta Pi, and author of"American College Fraternities." Mr. Baird says that "theundergraduates are very conservative in the matter of grantingcharters," that "this attitude seems to be based uponsentiment rather than reason," that the chapters "do notalways know what reason to give as a basis for their opinion"—they"simply do not want any more chapters." Hecontinues:Among the alumni, on the other hand, almost without exception, there isa general desire to see the fraternity extended and new chapters establishedas often as reasonable opportunities therefor arise. The alumnus of lessthan five years' standing usually will think as the boys do, but the alumnuswho has been out of college longer than that almost always holds the opinionstated.We recently had an occasion to meet an alumnus, who some few yearsago was the chairman of the committee on chapters and charters at one ofour conventions. This committee, led by him, turned down every applicationfor a charter made at that convention and was insistent that none shouldbe granted, although their presentation of the reasons therefor was weakand not at all convincing. Now, having been out of college some seven oreight years, he wonders why we do not establish more chapters, and said inthe conversation referred to that he could not understand why the trusteesand others engaged in actively administering the affairs of the fraternity didnot persuade the boys to take a different attitude. When his memory wasstirred and refreshed and his own attitude was called to mind about the matter,he said as an excuse, "Well, 1 was a kid then." Being curious to understandthe cause of his changed attitude, we tried to find out by questioninghim why it was. We could get very little out of him, however, exceptthat since his graduation he had found that the fraternity was a thing whichseemed to him could not be too large so long as it was within proper linesand properly administered.FRATERNITIES AT HARVARD,According to the K 2 Caduceus, conditions have changedat Harvard, and under the new order of things it is a healthyplace for general fraternities. K 2 installed a chapter of sixteenmen there on June 24, and they occupy a rented housethis year. An editorial in the October Caduceus says:It is the boast of K S that the fraternity has had the wisdom, or maybeonly the good fortune, to recognize changed conditions quickly and quicklyto act upon them. So long as everybody believed Harvard to be the verynorth pole of conservatism in college affairs, there was little reason for anygeneral college fraternity to look Cambridge way. Whether the change isin the attitude of the outside world toward the venerable institution, or vice•versa, there is a new order of things at Harvard, and both Harvard and the