Page:The Fraternity and the College (1915).pdf/71

 it, and their imaginations running riot had made the performance far worse than it really was. If the affair had to be it would have been better in its effects upon the character of the freshmen if they had been there.

I do not wish to be understood as advocating the theory that underclassmen should be on an equality with the upperclassmen in a fraternity. Other things being equal, the upperclassmen should rule; their two or three added years, and their greater experience give them the right to do so. My contention is that far too great a distinction is made between the freshman and the senior. If the freshman is to be developed as he should be, he should be treated as an intelligent adult and not as a child; he should become at once a real part of the fraternity and should be heard after the other members, perhaps, and his advice followed if it is good. He should be persuaded as a reasonable being, not coerced like a refractory truant child. If he is sent up stairs to study some one should go with him to show him how it may best be done. If there are habits of life which it is not well for him to form, then it is easily shown that it is not helpful for upperclassmen to indulge in them. The fraternity is to be a brotherhood, not an autocracy. There is at most too little difference between the ages and experiences of freshmen and seniors to make the distinctions that are usually made and