Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/67

 what do you do?" I asked. I knew quite well that he spent much of his time smoking in front of the cheerful grate fire when he should himself have been studying, while upstairs the freshmen in their study rooms were enjoying themselves as best they could. It all reminded me of a senior who was very fond of "Pall Malls," but who thought it undesirable for his freshman brother to indulge in cigarettes. Every evening '09 sent young '12 up to his—room to study while he remained in the living room to enjoy his cigarette. Upstairs little brother was not engaged solving algebraic formulae as was supposed, but was quietly puffing away at his own cigarette. There was no training for either of them in the procedure excepting the training in deceit. Fraternities too often consider themselves quite beyond criticism if in their various irregularities they can say that they at least keep their freshmen out of them. It affects me about the same as it would to have a man arrested for drunkenness claim immunity on the ground that his children at least were sober.

I talked only yesterday to a capable fraternity sophomore who has drifted both intellectually and morally since he entered college. I was urging him to pull himself together, to try to be something more than commonplace. "Do you think you have ever been of any real good to your fraternity?" I asked him. "I don't suppose so," he replied.