Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/135

 young men and connect themselves strongly with their influence and effectiveness when they become active members of the fraternity. On the whole, I believe the records of the university will show that a pretty large percentage of the young men living at home who have joined a fraternity have been poor students, and that relatively few of them have graduated. Of those men who have graduated there have been a few who have had conspicuously high grades, but of these I can count on the fingers of one hand all that have been of any material help or advantage to their chapters. The reason is not difficult to find.

The organization of the modern fraternity as I have before said, is the organization of a home, with all the obligations upon each member that such an organization implies. It is an organization which demands allegiance and regular help from every one in it, and this allegiance is not one that can profitably be divided. The married man, the man who lives at home, the member of the faculty who may still keep his active membership in the fraternity, are in a class by themselves and can scarcely hold quite the same relationship to the fraternity that the other members do. It may be asked what the fraternity has to offer to these other men and to the man who lives in town. In reply I should say that it furnishes him a circle of friends, it helps to connect him more closely with