Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/66

 "Why," the upperclassman said, "he is constantly offering suggestions and making criticisms of our methods; and the most annoying part of it is, he is usually right. But of course you can see that we can never allow a freshman to tell us what we ought to do, even if he is right." And yet, some way, I couldn't see it, and I cannot yet; for that freshman has proved himself most efficiently active in college affairs, and he has received the highest scholastic average so far this year of any student in the fraternity. I have the feeling that the chapter might very profitably allow him to express some opinions as to its conduct, and give him a little opportunity to develop independence.

The method of keeping freshmen under control by "tubbing" or "paddling," the ordering of freshmen about as if they were inferiors or without judgment, I believe in almost every case is bad and detrimental to the development of independence and self-reliance in the freshmen. I have never seen any permanent good come from regulations which prohibit underclassmen from smoking, or drinking, or going out, or from doing any objectionable thing which upperclassmen do with impunity.

"We send our freshmen to their rooms at half-past seven every night," an indifferent upperclassman virtuously declared to me not long ago. "And