Page:BairdsmanualofAmericancollegefrate8.pdf/34

14 larger Western and Southern colleges, the preparatory schools being intimately connected with the colleges, “preps” were not only pledged, but initiated before they entered the college proper, though the fraternities now usually forbid the initiation of this class of students, and it is not often indulged in. As the colleges usually open about the middle of September, the campaign for freshmen is then commenced and lasts until Christmas, when each chapter has secured its most desirable candidates. Where there is great rivalry, however, initiations take place all the year round.

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. The fraternities have perceived the danger of this practice and are making an effort to avert it as will be hereafter explained and in some colleges, the college authorities are attempting to regulate this matter. The deferred pledging of students until some fixed date and the deferred initiation of pledged members until they have completed a prescribed portion of their college course or secured a predetermined grade are both becoming usual customs.

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 into a fraternity or into a local society of the same general nature which afterwards became merged into a fraternity.