Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/185

 wish to seem discourteous to the returning alumnus or to make him angry, and he usually sees no way out of the embarrassment but to endure in the hope that the underclassmen will not notice the disgraceful proceeding or that he will be so disgusted with it as not to be injured by it.

The experienced alumnus may exert a powerful influence in the suggestion or advice which out of his wider experience he may offer to the chapter. Although the undergraduate fraternity man usually keeps in mind the fact that the responsibility for running the fraternity is on him and he wishes the alumnus also to keep this in mind, yet he is not averse to taking advice if it is offered at the proper time and in the right spirit. Sometimes, however, the alumnus, returning after an absence of many years, exaggerates the apparent faults of the chapter and attempts by a hammer and tongs method to correct them at once. Ordinarily he fails, and injures the chapter more than he helps it. Only a few days ago I listened to a young fraternity man out of college but a few years, criticising his fraternity most severely. He was somewhat incensed at me because I had found occasion to praise them for the stand they were taking in certain matters. "I jump on them," he said. "I believe in giving them hell; if they are praised it gives them the swell head." He could not see that being an alumnus he was an