Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/40

 for an only child who has so far yielded to no one and has been used to having every member of the household, from father to the family dog, come when he called; but it is a helpful experience, and it is well if one has it early. I recall a young fellow last year, the only child of a prominent physician, who was pledged to a fraternity—but gave back his pledge button because he could not have his own way in all things. He had from his childhood, if not from infancy, run the household at home, and he was unhappy when he could not do the same thing in college. Later in the year he was pledged to another fraternity, but even yet he was too set in his ways and too selfish to adjust himself to the life, and he got out of it this time by going home and entering another institution. When he gets a home of his own he will very likely browbeat his wife and abuse his children. He has little idea of the sacrifices demanded in a real home. The fraternity home life is a life of adjusting oneself to all sorts of things which are trifling, perhaps, but which may not at the outset seem pleasant. One must learn to eat what he does not like and when he does not like it; he must go to bed and get up and go out to suit the convenience of others; he must sometimes study when he would like to play, and polish the floor or mow the lawn when he would like to be strolling on the back campus, and he must do so willingly and cheer-