Page:BairdsmanualofAmericancollegefrate6.pdf/41

 The constant rivalry between chapters and the multiplication of fraternities has led in many cases to an indiscriminate scramble for members at the beginning of each year, and has in it the germ of the downfall of the entire system, unless the fraternities perceive the danger and make a united effort to avert it. This has been done at some colleges by an agreement between the chapters, or a regulation of the college authorities, that no student shall be approached upon the subject of fraternity membership until a certain time after his matriculation. Regulations of this kind either by mutual consent or imposed by college authority are becoming common.

Many fraternities have elected and initiated members who were not undergraduates, and, in some instances, not college men at all. These are termed "honorary" members, and in this work the term is applied to all who were not elected or initiated while undergraduate students, or in accordance with some fraternity rule permitting young men not collegians to join the chapters. This was frequently done in the early days of the fraternities to avoid anti-fraternity laws, by alleging that the chapters were not necessarily collegiate institutions, and hence not under the control of the faculties. In the South some of the fraternities have placed local or city chapters in favorable localities, for the purpose of aiding the extension of the fraternity. In many instances prominent public men have been elected honorary members for the notoriety conferred upon the fraternities by the addition of their names. Elections of this class of members have been generally discontinued, and in most fraternities pro-