Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/23

 the college authorities who have not set the proper example or shown the proper interest, or exercised the proper supervision or control over their undergraduates—who have in short let the student body run away with them, and who are to blame for it.

In the remainder of this paper I want to show how, in an institution of more than five thousand students during a period of nearly fifteen years, fraternities and similar organizations have been a real help to me. As an undergraduate student in the University of Illinois I had no connection with Greek-letter fraternities and no first hand knowledge of them. They were not permitted at that time in the institution, and I was led to believe that they were altogether objectionable. They were later allowed to reorganize in the University, and as an executive officer charged with the supervision of student conduct, student problems, and student activities, I became very intimately associated with these and other similar student organizations. The fact that shortly after leaving college I became a member of a Greek-letter fraternity, I believe has not in any undue degree prejudiced me in their favor.

One of the most practical things which the fraternities have done for the University of Illinois within the last fifteen years is materially to help in taking care of the problems of housing students at a reasonable rate. The fact that eleven of our