Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/43

 chapter the lower it was possible to keep living expenses, and that in a community where a majority of the students come from families of moderate means, it is not wise that expenses should be made prohibitive. It is doubtful whether or not it is ever expedient to make a house so large as to require an active chapter of forty in order that the house expenses may be met and yet kept within moderation. The better solution would be to build smaller and less expensive houses. One rather significant fact has been brought out by our investigations of scholarship records at the University of Illinois, however, and that is that scholarship has been affected very little by the size of the chapter, those chapters which have the highest enrollment having ordinarily quite as high scholastic standing as do the smaller chapters. It seems to me quite evident, however, that the possibilities for harmony, and unity, and general good-fellowship are lessened as the chapter roll grows beyond a certain point, and that the difficulties of management may so increase as to be more than one man ought reasonably to be expected to undertake. My experience leads me to the conclusion that it would be better to have more organizations with a smaller enrollment in each than to allow the members to run as high as they have sometimes done with us. One man with whom I spoke not long ago whose chapter has been un-