Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/174

 made promises of help which have resulted only in worthless slips of paper; but on the whole the alumni have shown the keenest financial interest in the local chapter and have been generous beyond what might have been expected in giving money. They have helped whenever the local chapters have got into financial corners, and this help came at a time when it was most needed.

We have, at the University of Illinois, between thirty-five and forty fraternal organizations, the most of them members of national fraternities. These chapters are all organized in about the same general way and carry an average membership of perhaps thirty. The two oldest of these organizations have been in existence for thirty-three years during ten years of which they were sub rosa, and they have a body of prominent and influential alumni. A number of our chapters have been organized for twenty years or more, and the majority have been running for ten or fifteen years. A few are of recent origin, and so have a small list of alumni, but for the most part the body of alumni of each chapter is considerable and its standing throughout the communities in which the members live is excellent. Eleven of our chapters own comfortable and well-furnished houses. The plans for the erection of these houses were in each case devised by interested alumni, the money for their erection has come in large part from the